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Contents 


PAGE 

Prefatory  Note 5 

I.  Commencement  Address:  Relation  of  the  State  University  to 

the  Commonwealth.  By  President  Edward  Janes  James,  Univer- 
sity of  Illinois 8 

II.  Addresses  in  Connection  with  the  Presentation  of  the  Sword 

of  General  Walter  Q.  Gresham — 

1.  Biographical  Sketch  of  General  Gresham.  By  Profes- 

sor James  A.  Woodburn,  Bloomington,  Indiana 28 

2.  Address  of  Presentation.  By  Mr.  Otto  Gresham,  Chi- 

cago, Illinois 37 

3.  Address  of  Acceptance.  By  President  William  Lowe 

Bryan 38 

III.  Address  to  the  Graduates  of  the  School  of  Law:  The  New 

Ideals.  By  Judge  George  DuRelle,  Louisville,  Kentucky 39 

IV.  Alumni  Address:  Public  Service  Reform.  By  Hon.  Cyrus  E. 

Davis,  '80,  Bloomfield,  Indiana 47 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

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INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


VOL.  IX  BLOOMINGTON,  IND.,  JUNE  15,  1911  NO.  6 


Entered  as  second-class  matter  May  16,  1908,  at  the  postoffice  at  Bloomington,  Indiana,  under  the 
Act  of  July  16,  1894.  Published  from  the  University  office,  Bloomington,  Indiana,  semi-monthly 
April,  May  and  June,  and  monthly  January,  February,  March,  July,  September,  and  November. 


Prefatory  Note 


The  principal  events  of  the  1911  Commencement  were  the  ad- 
dress before  the  School  of  Law  by  Judge  George  DuRelle,  of  Louis- 
ville, Kentucky,  on  the  evening  of  Friday,  June  16 ; the  baccalau- 
reate sermon  Sunday  evening  by  Rev.  A.  B.  Storms,  Indianapolis; 
the  address  Tuesday  morning  before  the  Alumni  Association  by  the 
Hon.  Cyrus  E.  Davis,  ’80,  of  Bloomfield,  Indiana ; the  Phi  Beta 
Kappa  address  Tuesday  afternoon  by  Professor  Andrew  C.  Mc- 
Laughlin, of  the  University  of  Chicago  ; the  Commencement  ad- 
dress, on  Wednesday,  by  President  Edward  Janes  James,  of  the 
University  of  Illinois ; and  the  addresses  during  the  Commence- 
ment exercises  in  connection  with  the  presentation  to  the  Univer- 
sity, by  Mrs.  Walter  Q.  Gresham  and  Mr.  Otto  Gresham,  of  the 
sword  of  General  Walter  Q.  Gresham.  Of  these  latter  there  were 
four:  a Biographical  Sketch  of  General  Gresham,  by  Professor 
Woodburn,  of  Indiana  University;  Personal  Reminiscences,  by 
General  Anson  Mills,  of  El  Paso,  Texas;  an  address  of  presenta- 
tion, by  Mr.  Otto  Gresham,  of  Chicago,  Illinois,  and  one  of  accept- 
ance, by  President  Bryan  on  behalf  of  the  University.  Six  of  these 
nine  addresses  are  printed  in  this  Bulletin. 

Interesting  features  of  Commencement  week  in  recent  years  are 
the  quinquennial  reunions  of  the  various  classes.  This  year  re- 
unions were  held  by  the  classes  of  1871,  1881,  1886,  1891,  1896, 
1901,  and  1906.  The  following  list  shows  the  members  of  each  of 
these  classes  present  at  its  reunion ; in  addition,  the  husbands,  or 
wives,  and  children  of  a number  of  members  were  present: 

[21 


(5) 


6 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


CLASS  OF  1871* 

Prof.  Thomas  G.  Alford,  West  Lafayette,  Ind. 
Mrs.  Helen  Alford  Berry,  West  Lafayette,  Ind. 
Lev.  John  W.  Culmer,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Susannah  Hamilton  Anderson,  Quincy,  Ind. 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Harrison  Dunn,  Louisville,  Ky. 
Lester  L.  Norton,  Houston,  Texas. 

Mrs.  Louise  Wylie  Boisen,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

CLASS  OF  1881 

Charles  A.  Burnett,  Lafayette,  Ind. 

Dean  Horace  A.  Hoffman,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
John  C.  Shirk,  Brookville,  Ind. 

Harry  H.  Sums,  Worthington,  Ky. 

Robert  A.  Woods,  Princeton,  Ind. 

CLASS  OF  1886 

Prof.  Carl  II.  Eigenmann,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Kate  Milner  Rabb,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 
Francis  Thomas  Singleton,  Martinsville,  Ind. 
John  Carr  Wells.  Bloomington,  Ind. 

CLASS  OF  1891 

Mrs.  Anna  Bowman  Hoffman,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Prof.  Lewis  S.  Davis,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

William  E.  Jenkins,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

William  M.  Louden,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Nancy  McMahon  .Tones,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Prof.  David  M.  Mottier,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Martha  Orchard  Malott,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Miss  Mary  Polk,  Manila,  P.  I. 

Dr.  Robert  C.  Rogers,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Daniel  T.  Weir,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Samuel  Ashby  (LL.B),  Indianapolis,  Ind. 
Theodore  J.  Louden  (LL.B.).  Bloomington,  Ind. 

CLASS  OF  1896 

Mrs.  Georgetta  Bowman  Giles,  Marion,  Ind. 

Prof.  Robert  C.  Brooks,  Cincinnati.  O. 

Miss  Blanche  Iv.  Freeman,  Palo  Alto,  Cal. 

Miss  Lucy  J.  Hunter,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Dr.  Abraham  J.  King,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Cora  Loehr  Mason,  Bloomfield,  Ind. 

Daniel  K.  Miers,  Chicago,  111. 

James  F.  Organ,  Vincennes,  Ind. 


•The  class  of  1871  decided  to  hold  another  reunion  in  1916. 


COMMENCEMENT  N UMBER 


7 


CLASS  OF  1901 

Dr.  Fred  H.  Batman,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Alta  Brunt  Sembower,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Mrs.  Anna  Cravens  Rott,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Grant  E.  Derbyshire,  Portland,  Ind. 

Miss  Grace  H.  Griffith,  Vevay,  Ind. 

Wiley  J.  Huddle,  Madison,  Wis. 

Ora  A.  Rawlins,  Kewanne,  111. 

Mrs.  Jessie  Ritter  Farmer,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Mrs.  Florence  Smith  Stott,  Union  City,  Ind. 

Miss  Lola  .T.  Smith,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Lena  Triplett  Rogers,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Sanford  Trippet,  Princeton,  Ind. 

CLASS  OF  1906 

Miss  Cordelia  J.  Adams,  Charlestown,  Ind. 

Will  J.  Blair,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Arthur  G.  Bobbitt,  Lebanon,  Ind. 

Carlyle  Bollenbacher,  Chicago,  111. 

Mrs.  Ruby  Bollenbacher  Beck,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Edgar  E.  Botts,  West  Lafayette,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Lila  Burnett  Louden,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Miss  Irene  Burtt,  Jeffersonville,  Ind. 

Miss  Elizabeth  Demaree,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Daniel  W.  Donovan,  Muncie,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Mary  Hamilton  Beck,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Mrs.  Olivia  Harvey  Wylie,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Miss  Emma  Holiday,  Monticello,  Ind. 

Prof.  George  A.  Hutchinson,  Pittsburg,  Pa. 

Harry  M.  Ibison,  Macon,  111. 

Mrs.  .Tosie  Koons  Ruch,  Mulberry,  Ind. 

Miss  Mary  Lewis.  Bloomington.  Ind. 

James  L.  McIntosh,  Brook,  Ind. 

Miss  Grace  Norwood,  Lebanon,  Ind. 

Miss  Edna  Nowland,  Indianapolis,  Ind. 

Miss  Nellie  Ober,  Auburn,  Ind. 

Mrs.  Carolyn  Read  Karsell,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Miss  Carolyn  Mabel  Reed,  Bloomington,  Ind. 
Manuel  O.  Roark,  Aurora,  111. 

Dr.  Burton  A.  Thompson.  Kokomo.  Ind. 

Norman  M.  Walker,  El  Paso,  Tex. 

Joseph  A.  Williams,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Andrew  T.  Wylie,  Bloomington,  Ind. 

Charles  Kemp  (LL.B.),  Tipton,  Ind. 

Percy  V.  Ruch  (LL.B.),  Mulberry.  Ind. 

Herbert  A.  Run  dell  (LL.B.),  Spencer,  Ind. 

Ora  L.  Wtloermuth  (LL.B.),  Gary,  Tnd. 


8 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


RELATION  OF  THE  STATE  UNIVERSITY  TO  THE 
COMMONWEALTH 

Commencement  address  by  President  Edward  J.  James,  of  the  University 

of  Illinois. 

The  erowth  of  the  state  university  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
facts  in  the  field  of  higher  education  in  the  United  States  during 
the  last  twenty-five  years. 

Down  to  the  middle  of  the  last  century  it  looked  as  if  the  United 
States  would  for  an  indefinite  time  follow  the  example  of  England 
during  the  last  two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and  leave  the  field 
of  higher  education  entirely  to  the  care  of  the  church,  or  private 
secular  organizations,  or  of  private  individuals,  and  it  was  not  un- 
til well  into  the  ’80 ’s  of  the  last  century  that  it  was  perfectly  clear 
that  a fundamental  change  was  taking  place  in  this  respect  through- 
out the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country. 

With  the  founding  of  the  new  state  universities,  and  the  enlarge- 
ment and  development  of  the  older  state  institutions,  it  became 
evident  that  the  state  was  going  into  the  field  of  higher  education 
as  an  important,  if  not  dominant,  element,  over  most  of  the  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States. 

To  the  states  lying  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  and  north  of 
Mason  and  Dixon’s  line,  the  state  university  idea  is  still  a 
foreign  one,  though  even  here,  Maine  and  Vermont  have  shown  a 
growing  interest  in  the  educational  movement  which  has  produced 
the  state  university;  and  Cornell  University  in  New  York  is  ac- 
customing the  people  of  that  state  to  making  appropriations  on  a 
large  scale  for  certain  departments  of  university  work. 

But  along  the  Atlantic  seaboard  south,  in  the  Mississippi  Val- 
ley through  its  entire  extent,  north  and  south,  and  along  the  Pa- 
cific slope  from  southern  California  to  Washington,  the  state  uni- 
versity has  already  become  the  typical  institution  of  higher  learn- 
ing. 

There  are,  of  course,  in  this  region  also  great  private  founda- 
tions. Chicago,  Northwestern,  Western  Reserve,  Tulane,  Leland 
Stanford,  Washington,  are  great  institutions,  rivaling  not  only  the 
greatest  of  the  state  universities,  but  the  greatest  of  the  private 
foundations  along  the  Atlantic  coast.  The  number  of  these  great 
private  institutions  is  likely  to  increase  in  the  future,  and  we  who 
are  engaged  in  state  university  work  can  only  wish  them  well ; for 
with  their  enormous  resources  and  great  educational  insight  they 


commencement  number 


9 


are  not  only  doing  a great  service  to  their  own  students,  but  are 
showing  state  institutions,  in  many  directions,  the  way  which  leads 
to  the  highest  usefulness.  Besides  these  larger  institutions,  there 
are  many  smaller  colleges  and  seminaries,  supported  by  churches  or 
private  individuals,  which  taken  together  are  performing  a most 
useful  function  for  the  states  and  the  nation.  They  deserve  our 
sympathy  and  good  wishes. 

Indeed,  I do  not  see  how  our  state  universities  can  do  their 
most  useful  work  except  upon  the  basis  of  the  thorough  cultivation 
of  their  special  constituencies  and  their  special  localities  by  these 
private  or  church  institutions. 

All  hail  to  them,  therefore,  and  God  speed  in  their  great  task ! 

But  numerous  and  valuable  as  these  foundations  may  become, 
it  does  not  seem  likely  that  they  will  ever  become  the  typical  or 
dominant  type  of  higher  institutions  throughout  the  south,  center, 
and  west  of  this  country. 

Already  in  most  of  the  states  of  the  union  the  state  university 
has  become  the  most  important  single  institution  of  higher  learning 
within  its  territory. 

Even  in  those  states  like  California,  Illinois,  Ohio,  and  Missouri, 
where  there  are  great  private  foundations,  as  noted  above,  such  as 
Northwestern,  Chicago,  Armour,  Western  Reserve,  Washing- 
ton, and  Leland  Stanford,  the  state  universities  have  become  im- 
portant elements  in  the  educational  life  of  the  state;  while  even 
in  the  territory  of  the  private  institution  par  excellence,  namely 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  north  of  Virginia,  there  are  not  wanting  per- 
fectly evident  signs  of  a growing  interest  in  this,  for  us,  compar- 
atively new  form  of  higher  education. 

Of  the  forty-eight  states  in  the  American  Union,  thirty-eight 
have  established  the  state  university  pure  and  simple,  under  the 
direct  control  of  the  state,  and  one,  New  York,  has  in  Cornell  an 
institution  which  is  developing  more  and  more  completely  along 
state  university  lines. 

The  tendency  and  attitude  of  the  western  communities  toward 
the  state  university  idea  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  nearly  all  the 
newer  states  had  established  state  universities  while  still  in  the  ter- 
ritorial condition.  This  is  true  of  the  two  latest  additions  to  the 
list  of  states,  New  Mexico  and  Arizona. 

The  attendance  at  the  state  universities  and  other  state-aided 
institutions  of  higher  education  during  the  year  1908-1909  was 
90,187b 

'Compiled  from  Bulletin,  1909,  No.  11,  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Education. 


10 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


The  importance  of  this  group  of  institutions  for  American  edu- 
cation is  therefore  evidently  great,  and  it  is  eminently  proper  and 
surely  worth  our  while  on  such  an  occasion  as  this  to  give  some 
little  time  to  the  discussion  of  its  significance  for  our  American  life. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  note  in  passing  that  the  educational 
literature  of  our  time,  neither  in  this  country  nor  in  Europe,  has 
given  any  adequate  attention  to  this  great  movement.  It  is  not, 
of  course,  surprising  that  the  standard  histories  of  education  by 
European  authorities  ignore  the  state  university  entirely,  or  make 
only  the  briefest  reference  to  it;  for  standard  histories  in  any  de- 
partment give  little  or  no  attention  to  recent  events  or  recent  move- 
ments: but  it  is  rather  astonishing  that  even  the  most  recent  official 
reports  made  for  European  governments  by  special  agents  contain 
little  or  no  reference  to  this  remarkable  movement,  and  this  is  true 
even  of  the  newest  letters  and  books  written  by  passing  travelers 
who  may  take  occasion  to  discuss  the  educational  system  of  the 
United  States. 

It  is  surely  more  surprising  that  in  our  own  country  men  along 
the  northern  coast  of  the  Atlantic  have  shown  almost  as  little  ap- 
preciation of  the  significance  of  this  development  for  the  present 
and  future  of  American  education. 

The  historians  of  the  next  generation  will  regard  this  sweep  to- 
ward government  participation  in  higher  education  as  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  educational  phenomena  of  the  last  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  study  the  development  of  this  move- 
ment and  trace  out  the  effect  which  various  elements  may  have  had 
in  working  toward  this  common  result. 

The  causes  of  this  peculiar  and  unexpected  departure  from  the 
custom  and  habit  of  the  preceding  period  in  American  history,  and 
from  the  ideas  of  our  English  forefathers,  are  partly  national, 
partly  local,  partly  financial,  partly  temperamental;  possibly  also 
partly  racial,  and  surely  partly  political  and  partly  social. 

But  interesting  as  this  study  might  be,  it  would  take  us  too  far 
afield  on  the  present  occasion,  and  I must  turn  aside  to  the  more 
immediate  subject  of  my  remarks,  namely : 

The  relation  of  the  State  University  to  the  Commonwealth. 

What  is  a university  ? It  is  difficult  to  define  a term  which  has 
had  such  a long  history  and  has  meant,  therefore,  such  different 
things  at  different  times.  It  is  difficult  to  define  a term  which  is 
used  in  all  modern  languages  and  in  all  civilized  countries  and 
means  something  different  in  each  country  from  what  it  means  in 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


11 


any  other.  It  is  difficult  to  define  a term  which  even  in  a single 
country  like  our  own  covers  such  a multitude  of  diverse  institu- 
tions, and  diverse  elements.  We  speak  of  Harvard  University,  of 
Clark  University,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  Florida  University, 
and  yet  it  would  he  difficult  to  select  four  institutions,  called  by 
the  same  name,  with  more  remarkable  differences  among*  themselves 
than  these. 

I do  not  know,  however,  that  it  is  necessary  to  obtain  a defini- 
tion upon  which  all  will  agree.  At  any  rate  I am  confident  that 
no  such  definition  can  be  formulated  at  present. 

I shall,  therefore,  make  my  own  definition  for  the  purposes  of 
this  argument,  and  you  will  see  from  the  definition  and  from  the 
development  of  the  subject,  what  I think  the  state  university  is,  in 
idea  at  any  rate,  and  what  it  is  likely  to  become  more  and  more 
fully  as  it  develops,  according  to  its  inherent  nature. 

I should  define  a university  briefly,  as  that  institution  of  the 
community  which  affords  the  ultimate  institutional  training  of  the 
youth  of  the  country,  for  all  the  various  callings  for  which  an  ex- 
tensive scientific  training,  based  upon  adequate  liberal  preparation, 
is  valuable  and  necessary.  You  will  note  the  elements  in  the  de- 
finition. By  virtue  of  the  function  thus  assigned  to  it,  it  is  in  a 
certain  sense  the  highest  educational  institution  of  the  community. 
It  is  the  institution  which  furnishes  a special,  professional,  techni- 
cal. training  for  some  particular  calling.  This  special,  technical, 
professional  training  must,  however,  be  scientific  in  character,  and 
must  be  based  upon  adequate  preliminary  preparation  of  a liberal 
sort.  By  this  requirement  of  a liberal  preparatory  training  the 
university  is  differentiated  from  the  technical  school  or  trade  school 
of  secondary  grade.  It  is  further  differentiated  from  trade  schools 
by  the  more  scientific  character  of  its  training;  and  also  by  this 
same  feature  from  the  mere  preparatory  cram  school  for  public' 
examinations,  such  as  the  private  professional  schools  of  this  coun- 
try have  been  down  to  within  a very  recent  date. 

We  might  paraphrase  this  definition  of  the  university,  for  even 
at  the  risk  of  repetition  I desire  to  fix  in  your  minds  the  funda- 
mental thought  underlying  this  presentation. 

A university  is  a higher  institution  of  learning  which  prepares 
the  suitably  trained  youth  of  a country  for  the  adequate  practice 
of  the  learned  professions. 

A learned  profession  is  a calling  which  for  its  adequate  pursuit 
requires  a special  training  in  the  sciences  underlying  the  art,  which 


12 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


special  training  is  itself  based  upon  an  adequate  preliminary  train- 
ing of  a liberal  sort. 

The  learned  professions  at  one  time  included  only  medicine, 
law,  and  theology.  Today  they  include  teaching,  engineering,  scien- 
tific farming,  dentistry,  pharmacy,  chemistry,  physics,  geology, 
astronomy,  etc.  Tomorrow  they  will  also  include  banking,  insur- 
ance, railroading,  merchandising,  journalism. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  definition  distinguishes  the  university 
from  the  trade  school  of  all  kinds,  because  of  its  emphasis  on  two 
things:  first,  the  need  of  adequate  liberal  training  as  a condition 
of  the  special  technical  training  suitable  to  the  profession;  second, 
the  emphasis  on  the  scientific  element  in  the  professional  training 
itself.  Thus  a medical  school,  for  example,  which  did  not  insist 
upon  an  adequate  liberal  training  on  the  part  of  the  student  be- 
fore he  was  admitted  to  the  study  of  medicine,  would  not  be  a uni- 
versity medical  school,  whatever  else  it  is.  Nor  would  a medical 
school  which  contented  itself  with  giving  the  student  rules  of 
thumb  for  the  treatment  of  patients,  instead  of  a thorough  ground- 
ing in  the  sciences  underlying  the  art,  be  a university  medical 
school,  whatever  else  it  might  be.  So  a law  school  which  did  not  in- 
sist upon  a liberal  preparatory  training  as  a condition  of  admis- 
sion would  not  be  a university  law  school.  Nor  would  a school 
which  was  satisfied  with  giving  students  directions  as  to  how  they 
should  do  this,  that,  and  the  other,  and  with  giving  them  knowledge 
presented  in  a mechanical  manner  which  should  serve  the  student 
as  a mere  means  of  doing  his  routine  work,  instead  of  training  him 
in  the  broad  principles  underlying  the  history  and  development  of 
the  law,  be  a university  law  school. 

This  idea  we  must  dwell  upon  a little  further,  ai  the  risk  of  be- 
ing somewhat  tedious,  so  as  to  get  clearly  before  us  the  points  we 
are  trying  to  elucidate. 

It  would  be  possible  to  establish,  for  instance,  a trade  school  in 
ceramics,  that  is,  in  the  clay  working  industries,  which  should  sim- 
ply take  the  untrained,  uneducated  boy  from  the  grammar  grades 
and  give  him  the  necessary  technical  training  to  enable  him  to 
practice  the  art  as  it  is  carried  on  in  the  ordinary  brick  yard  or 
terra  cotta  factory  or  porcelain  establishment.  That,  of  course, 
would  be,  strictly  speaking,  a trade  school ; but  if  we  establish  in 
the  university  a school  of  ceramics  or  a department  of  ceramics,  and 
wish  to  have  it  a truly  university  school,  we  must  do  two  things. 
First  of  all,  insist  upon  a liberal  training  on  the  part  of  students 
who  shall  be  admitted  to  this  school  or  department.  Second,  we 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


13 


ruust  train  them  in  the  sciences  underlying  the  practice  of  their 
art  in  such  a way  that  they  shall  be  able  to  understand  the  princi- 
ples on  which  the  art  is  based,  and  be  able  to  do  their  part  in  de- 
veloping and  improving  this  trade  or  profession  which  they  pro- 
pose to  take  up. 

It  is  plain  enough  that  one  school  trains  the  mechanic  or  the 
artisan.  The  other  trains  the  leader,  the  director,  the  manager, 
the  investigator.  An  ideal  arrangement,  of  course,  in  any  country, 
would  be  that  under  which  the  men  especially  qualified  to  do  this 
directive,  this  forming,  this  shaping,  this  developing  work,  should 
have  the  benefit  of  the  highest  form  of  scientific  training. 

Now  in  discussing  the  relation  of  the  state  to  such  an  institution 
as  this,  namely  an  institution  which  undertakes  to  provide  special 
training  for  all  these  callings,  the  successful  pursuit  of  which  is 
based  upon  an  extensive  scientific  training,  involving  for  its  com- 
plete assimilation  a preliminary  liberal  training,  and  therefore 
an  institution  composed  of  many  departments,  reaching  out  to  an- 
swer the  needs  of  all  the  professions  in  this  sense  of  the  term — I say 
our  first  question  is,  Why  should  the  state  concern  itself  about  such 
an  institution  at  all?  Why  not  leave  all  professional,  special  edu- 
cation to  the  care  and  nurture  of  private  institutions  or  private  in- 
dividuals ? 

This  is  what  was  done  in  England,  for  example,  down  to  a com- 
paratively recent  time.  The  English  government  concerned  itself 
but  little  as  a government  with  the  development  of  professional 
training  of  any  kind.  It  required  examinations  from  people  who 
wished  to  practice  surgery,  or  medicine,  or  law,  but  entrusted  to 
private  individuals  themselves  or  private  corporations,  to  a large 
extent,  even  the  conduct  of  these  examinations,  and  the  determina- 
tion of  what  should  be  required.  At  first  we  followed  England’s 
plan,  which  we  had  inherited,  though  we  began  to  break  away  from 
it  in  many  respects  early  in  the  last  century,  and  every  passing 
year  has  made  a greater  difference  between  the  English  and  Ameri- 
can methods  of  doing  things. 

In  Germany  we  have  a striking  illustration  of  a country  which 
adopted  a different  plan,  namely  one  in  which  the  government  di- 
rectly and  immediately  undertook  to  provide  means  of  special  edu- 
cation as  rapidly  as  it  demanded  special  preparation  from  all  peo- 
ple who  were  to  practice  a given  profession.  So  completely  did 
Germany  adopt  this  system,  that  private  institutions  of  all  kinds 
in  the  field  of  higher  education  have  almost  entirely  disappeared. 


13] 


14 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


In  tills  country  we  have  adopted  a plan  combining  the  benefits 
and  drawbacks,  the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  both  systems. 
We  left,  in  the  first  place,  the  entire  matter  to  the  private  individ- 
ual, to  private  institutions,  church  or  secular.  We  then  began  by 
slow  steps  to  provide  in  some  of  the  states,  ultimately  in  the  major- 
ity, for  this  training  for  some  professions,  but  not  for  others ; and 
the  question  we  raise  today  then,  first,  is  why  should  the  state  do 
this  at  all  ? 

My  first  answer  is  that  the  so-called  learned  professions  of  a 
country  are  specifically  potent  for  the  public  weal  or  woe,  accord- 
ing as  the  members  of  the  profession  are  adequately  or  poorly 
trained.  When  a calling  becomes  a profession,  i.e.  when  it  has 
reached  a time  when  the  function  which  it  performs  for  the  com- 
munity is  an  important  one,  and  can  be  performed  far  more  effici- 
ently by  men  who  have  had  a thorough  scientific  training  than  by 
those  who  have  not  had  such  training,  then  it  becomes  greatly  to 
the  advantage  of  the  community  that  all  persons  practicing  that 
profession  should  have  that  training.  When  this  point  has  been 
reached  in  the  development  of  any  profession,  then  the  community 
will  find  it  to  its  advantage  to  assist  in  the  provision  of  adequate 
facilities  for  such  training;  since  the  history  of  education  in  all 
countries  demonstrates  beyond  a doubt  that  unless  the  state  does 
so  assist,  adequate  means  for  attainment  of  such  education  will  not 
be  forthcoming. 

If  the  state  desires  to  improve  the  quality  of  its  primary,  sec- 
ondary, and  higher  schools,  and  wishes  to  increase  the  number  of 
these  institutions  to  any  considerable  extent,  educational  history 
demonstrates  beyond  a doubt  that  that  community  must  itself  pro- 
vide, or  assist  in  providing,  adequate  facilities  for  the  training  of 
teachers  in  such  schools,  or  such  facilities  will  not  exist,  such 
teachers  will  not  be  trained;  and  such  improvements  in  the  edu- 
cational system,  therefore,  as  are  desired,  cannot  be  carried  through. 
The  same  thing  is  true  of  medicine.  If  the  time  has  come  when  the 
community,  for  the  sake  of  the  community,  insists  upon  a greater 
degree  of  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  men  who  practice  the  medi- 
cal profession,  if  the  community  is  really  in  earnest  about  improv- 
ing the  conditions  of  public  health  and  proceeding  in  a policy  of 
prevention  of  disease,  it  must  in  some  way  or  other  provide  ade- 
quate facilities  for  the  training  of  the  men  who  are  to  devise  these 
policies  and  carry  them  out  in  the  interest  of  the  community. 
Otherwise  the  whole  proposition  will  fail. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


15 


And  so  of  the  condition  in  other  professions.  Now  I should  say, 
first  of  all,  that  we  must  keep  in  mind  that  the  state  undertakes 
such  support,  if  it  does  it  at  all,  not  primarily  from  a consideration 
of  the  interests  of  the  men  who  are  going  to  practice  these  profes- 
sions, but  rather  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  interest  of  the  com- 
munity as  a whole.  If  it  provides  opportunities  for  legal  educa- 
tion, that  is  not  done  to  aid  private  individuals  in  improving  the 
means  by  which  they  shall  make  a living,  but  it  is  done  because  the 
profession  of  the  law  is  one  of  the  most  important  professions  of 
the  community.  Some  of  our  highest  interests  are  entrusted  to  it. 
The  functions  which  it  performs  are  vital  to  the  existence  of  soci- 
ety, and  the  proper  performance  of  those  functions  is  vital  to  the 
welfare  of  society.  The  administration  of  justice  is  such  a compli- 
cated matter  at  best  that  only  intelligent,  honest,  and  educated  men 
ought  to  be  entrusted  with  it,  or  permitted  to  have  any  part  in  it. 
No  community  can  persuade  the  requisite  number  of  properly 
trained  men  to  devote  their  lives  to  the  administration  of  justice, 
on  the  bench  and  at  the  bar,  unless  it  itself  provides  the  kind  of 
training  which  will  help  produce  this  product  which  it  demands. 
Any  given  lawyer  is  interested,  so  far  as  his  own  case  is  concerned, 
in  getting  a training  which  will  enable  him  to  get  ahead  of  his  com- 
petitor and  win  the  cases  before  the  courts.  But  it  is  you  and  I 
who  are  interested  that  the  man  who  practices  the  law  shall  be  a 
competent  and  well  trained  man.  This  is  true  of  me,  who,  I am 
happy  to  say,  have  never  found  it  necessary  to  resort  to  the  courts 
of  law,  as  well  as  of  my  neighbor,  who  may  spend  perhaps  the 
larger  part  of  his  life  in  litigation ; for  the  case  decided  in  the  courts, 
if  properly  decided,  benefits  far  more  the  men  who  never  resort  to 
the  courts,  than  it  does  those  who  have  been  compelled  to  take  on 
the  expense  of  prosecuting  such  suits.  My  neighbor  helps  me  when 
he  secures  a positive  definition  of  the  law,  and  shows  that  it  can  be 
applied  in  such  a way  as  to  secure  substantial  justice,  and  this 
makes  it  unnecessary  for  me  to  go  to  law. 

Any  particular  judge  is  interested  in  having  such  a training 
as  will  enable  him  to  hold  his  place  on  the  bench,  but  you  and  I are 
interested  in  his  having  such  a training  as,  in  the  performance  of 
his  duty,  will  insure  to  you  and  me  the  rights  which  our  laws  and 
institutions  are  intended  to  secure  to  us.  Now  my  proposition  is 
simply  that  we  can  never  have,  in  a country  like  this,  a properly 
trained  bar  unless  the  community  whose  interests  it  serves  insists 
upon  such  a training  as  will  produce  the  highest  type  of  lawyer 


16 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


and  judge,  and  no  such  training  can  be  secured  unless  the  state 
steps  in  to  sustain  and  assist,  if  not  to  provide  absolutely,  the  fa- 
cilities for  this  kind  of  work. 

The  farmer  whose  interests  are  involved  in  the  adequacy  of  his 
title  to  his  land,  whose  interests  are  involved  in  his  right  to  the 
water  in  a country  which  needs  irrigation,  or  in  the  organization 
and  proper  enforcement  of  the  laws  which  control  his  buying  and 
selling,  is  vitally  interested  in  having  some  one  within  his  reach,  of 
honesty,  of  intelligence,  and  of  adequate  training  in  this  particular 
department,  to  give  him  the  advice  which  he  needs  at  critical  times 
in  his  business  and  social  relations.  A country  which  cannot  and 
does  not  support  an  honest,  intelligent,  and  highly  trained  bar  and 
bench  must  suffer  incalculable  loss  because  of  its  unwillingness  or 
its  inability  to  provide  for  this  great  department  of  its  life. 

The  case  is  just  as  true  of  public  health.  No  community  can 
expect  to  prosper  in  the  long  run  and  under  the  intense  competi- 
tive conditions  of  modern  life,  growing  more  and  more  strenuous 
all  the  time,  unless  it  provides  adequately  for  the  care  of  its  public 
health.  That  means  not  merely  the  treatment  of  the  sick  by  indi- 
vidual physicians,  but  the  prevention  of  disease  by  the  application 
of  modern  science.  First  of  all  by  the  discoveries  of  modern 
science,  then  by  their  practical  application  for  this  particular  pur- 
pose. 

Now  it  has  become  so  perfectly  plain  that  this  care  of  the  public 
health  cannot  be  obtained  unless  there  is  an  adequate  supply  of 
properly  trained  physicians  to  undertake  this  work  of  curing  and 
this  work  of  prevention,  that  the  medical  school  has  become  a char- 
acteristic feature  of  all  modern  civilized  societies,  and  that  no  man 
would  think  of  entering  upon  the  practice  of  medicine  today  with- 
out attending  some  kind  of  a school  for  some  length  of  time. 

Here  again  the  same  principle  holds  as  in  the  case  of  the  law. 
The  community  is  interested  in  this  matter,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  making  it  easier  for  private  individuals  to  get  a living  by  the 
practice  of  medicine,  but  for  the  purpose  of  securing  as  high  a level 
as  possible  of  theoretical  training  and  practical  skill  on  the  part  of 
the  people  to  whom  this  work  must  be  entrusted.  Some  one  of  you 
sitting  in  this  room  may  on  leaving  the  building  be  struck  by  an 
automobile  and  possibly  have  your  skull  cracked.  Whoever  picks 
you  up  may  summon  the  physician  who  lives  across  the  street,  or 
he  may  simply  stand  on  the  street  corner  and  cry  out,  “Where  is 
there  a doctor?”  and  you  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  an  extremely 
incompetent  man,  the  result  of  whose  practice  upon  you  is  that 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


17 


your  life  is  suddenly  brought  to  an  end,  or  your  continued  life  be 
made  a burden  to  you  for  many  years  to  come.  It  is  to  the  interest 
of  the  doctor  who  is  called  to  have  enough  of  a reputation  or  enough 
of  a recognition  to  get  permission  to  practice  medicine,  but  it  is  to 
your  interest  that  he  should  have  the  highest  possible  skill  when 
he  comes  to  treat  you.  So  a disease  may  be  on  the  verge  of  break- 
ing out  in  your  village,  which  if  allowed  to  get  a foot-hold  may 
sweep  away  a large  portion  of  the  population.  The  only  men  who 
can  handle  such  a situation  are  adequately  trained  scientific  men. 
No  others  can  do  the  business.  It  is  therefore  to  your  interest  and 
to  mine,  the  people  who  are  practiced  on,  the  people  who  suffer 
from  defects  in  the  organization  of  public  health,  to  see  that  there 
is  an  adequate  supply  of  trained  men,  as  highly  trained  as  pos- 
sible, to  safeguard  the  interests  of  the  community  in  this  great  de- 
partment of  its  life. 

Now  educational  history  has  demonstrated  beyond  a doubt  that 
private  individuals,  private  initiative,  whether  through  the  church 
or  through  secular  organizations,  will  not — nay,  I think  we  may  say 
it  is  demonstrated  that  it  cannot — provide  adequate  facilities  in  this 
particular  department,  and  that  in  spite  of  all  the  magnificent  gifts 
which  have  been  made  for  this  purpose  by  the  wealthy  men  of  this 
and  other  countries. 

Do  the  people  of  this  State  wish  to  have  public  health  organized 
and  administered  in  the  proper  way?  Do  they  wish  to  have  the 
best  skill  available  for  the  cure  and  prevention  of  disease  in  their 
midst?  If  so  they  must  themselves  as  a unit  and  a corporation 
assist  in  the  development  of  facilities  for  the  attainment  of  this 
particular  form  of  higher  training. 

Let  us  take  another  illustration,  from  a department  about  which 
perhaps  there  would  be  more  difference  of  opinion.  Take  the  sub- 
ject of  banking.  Most  people  believe  that  banking  cannot  be  taught. 
It  must  be  learned  by  going  into  a bank.  Most  people  believe  there 
are  no  principles  underlying  successful  banking  which  can  be  taught 
in  any  school.  That  may  be.  We  shall  leave  that  for  the  moment, 
anyhow,  undebated.  But  suppose  that  there  are  such  principles. 
Suppose  they  can  be  taught.  Would  it  be  to  the  interest  of  the 
people  of  this  state  and  the  people  of  the  other  states  to  develop 
such  instruction  in  our  universities  for  the  purpose  of  turning  out 
1 r ained  bankers  ? 

Everybody  is  aware  that  our  banking  system  in  the  United 
States  is  very  far  from  perfect.  That  we  have  in  this  country 
crises  and  panics,  which  have  ceased  to  be  characteristic  of  Eng- 


18 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


land  or  France  or  Germany,  what  we  should  call  sudden  panics  or 
currency  panics.  All  of  you  can  remember  a time  not  very  long 
ago  when  you  could  not  get  your  own  money  out  of  a'  bank  in 
which  you  had  deposited  it.  In  other  words,  when  the  banks  of 
the  entire  country  as  a whole  suspended  payments;  i.e.  when  the 
banks  went  into  bankruptcy,  properly  speaking.  Now  whose  fault 
was  it  ? How  did  it  come  about  ? Why  did  it  happen  ? There  is 
a very  considerable  difference  of  opinion,  but  surely  there  must  be 
some  explanation  for  such  a phenomenon  as.  that.  There  must  be 
some  way  of  preventing  that  particular  kind  of  a panic  or  crisis, 
for  other  nations  have  succeeded  in  preventing  that  sort  of  thing, 
and  even  if  they  had  not  succeeded,  it  would  still  be  probable  that 
there  would  be  some  way  ascertainable,  by  investigation  and  experi- 
ment, of  remedying  such  a situation.  Now  certainly  one  of  the 
reasons  is  the  fact  that  our  bankers  for  some  reason  or  other,  or 
the  country  for  some  reason  or  other,  failed  to  adopt  a proper  bank- 
ing system.  Now  if  by  the  better  education  of  our  bankers  we 
could  develop  a profession  which  would  be  interested  not  simply 
in  making  money  at  the  desk  from  day  to  day,  but  also  in  study- 
ing the  system  in  the  large,  if  we  could  create  a profession  by  which 
a sound  banking  system  can  be  developed  and  maintained — I say 
that  if  it  were  possible  for  the  university  to  contribute  toward 
bringing  about  this  result  by  an  institution  for  the  training  of 
bankers,  surely  it  would  be  well  worth  the  while  for  North  Dakota 
and  Illinois  and  Michigan  and  Missouri  and  Indiana  to  spend  a 
cent  upon  something  which  in  the  long  run  and  in  the  large  might 
save  them  a dollar.  The  bankers  of  the  country  as  a whole,  only  a 
brief  while  ago,  broke  down  in  their  business  and  in  their  theories 
and  in  everything  else,  and  the  loss  was  not  theirs  by  any  means, 
but  it  was  yours  and  mine,  and  those  of  us  who  had  to  sulfer  from 
the  inadequacy  and  defects  of  this  system.  So  I might  follow  this 
thought  in  various  other  departments;  but  I have,  I think,  given  a 
sufficient  number  of  illustrations  to  bring  before  you  the  funda- 
mental proposition,  namely,  that  it  is  worth  the  while  of  the  state 
to  undertake  to  provide  facilities  for  the  scientific  training  of  men 
in  all  callings  for  the  successful  pursuit  of  which  a scientific  train- 
ing is  necessary  or  desirable. 

If  this  point  of  view  is  correct,  we  need  not  stop  to  discuss 
whether  the  medical  school  is  justifiable,  or  the  law  school  is  justi- 
fhible,  oi*  the  engineering  school  is  justifiable,  or  the  agricultural 
school  is  justifiable.  We  have  already  definitely  determined  in  all 
the  states  that  an  agricultural  school  which  has  for  its  object  the 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


19 


production  of  scientific  fanners  is  worth  the  while  of  a nation  to 
maintain,  for  we  have  such  a school  in  every  state  in  the  union. 
We  have  also  decided  beyond  any  peradventure  that  it  is  worth 
the  while  of  a nation  to  establish  and  maintain  engineering  schools 
for  the  development  of  the  engineer,  not  for  his  own  sake,  but  for 
the  sake  of  the  country,  for  your  sake  and  mine ; since  the  federal 
government  contributes  to  the  support  of  such  a school  in  every 
state  in  the  union.  With  these  two  points  conceded,  there  is  of 
course  absolutely  no  possible  ground  for  objecting  to  any  other  p o 
fessional  school  except  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  is  unnecessary, 
or  that  the  time  has  not  come  for  such  professional  schools,  or  that 
the  need  is  already  supplied  by  private  individuals  and  organiza- 
tions. 

Having  arrived,  then,  at  the  conclusion  which  I believe  is  now 
accepted,  in  practice  if  not  in  theory,  by  all  the  states  of  the  Ameri- 
can union,  namely  that  the  states  may  properly  support  these  uni- 
versities whose  object  is  the  training  of  the  young  people  of  the 
community  for  their  respective  callings,  we  may  ask  what  are  some 
of  the  fundamental  principles  of  sound  university  organization,  and 
what  things  may  these  universities,  these  great  centers  of  profes- 
sional education,  do  for  the  community  which  they  are  not  doing 
or  are  not  doing  to  the  fullest  extent. 

I have  defined  the  university  thus  far  as  an  institution  for  the 
training  of  the  youth  of  a nation.  Now  of  course  the  work  of  such 
institutions  must  be  carried  on  by  teachers,  by  men  who  will  train 
these  young  people  who  come  up  to  the  university;  and  the  first 
question  which  comes  to  them  as  a vital  question  is  what  method 
of  treatment  shall  we  adopt,  how  shall  we  train  these  young  people. 

The  limits  of  this  address  forbid  my  going  into  a long  exposi- 
tion upon  this  subject,  and  yet  I should  like  to  set  forth  in  a few 
words  my  own  views,  and  leave  them  for  your  consideration. 

I believe  that  the  proper  way  to  train  the  man  or  woman  who 
is  going  to  practice  one  of  these  learned  professions,  .so  far  as  a 
school  can  train  him,  is  to  prepare  him  for  independent  work  in 
the  sciences  underlying  his  profession.  Now  I am  aware  that  this 
is  a much  mooted  question.  I wish  simply  to  get  before  you  the 
exact  point  of  dispute,  and  then  my  own  view,  and  leave  it  with  you 
for  consideration.  Some  people  maintain  that  1 lie  proper  plan  for 
a university  professor  to  follow  is  to  train  the  university  student 
in  a text-book  or  in  his  lectures,  letting  him  learn  by  rote  what  may 
be  given  to  him,  insisting  upon  attendance  at  classes,  insisting 
on  examinations  as  a test  to  determine  whether  he  is  attending 


20 


INDIANA  UNIVEKSITY  BULLETIN 


to  liis  work,  and  finally  graduating  him  when  he  has  acquired 
a certain  amount  of  knowledge,  has  taken  a certain  number 
of  courses,  etc.  I wish  to  join  issue  on  this  particular  point.  1 
maintain  that  the  proper  training  is  one  which  will  result  in  mak- 
ing that  individual  an  independent  investigator  on  his  own  account 
in  his  chosen  field  of  study;  will  equip  him  so  that  he  can  form, 
upon  a scientific  basis  and  upon  reasonable  grounds,  his  own  judg- 
ment in  the  field  of  his  work.  Now  there  is  a vast  difference  be- 
tween this  and  the  former  idea.  Suppose  we  are  to  train  a teacher 
of  mathematics,  for  example.  He  may  learn  algebra,  geometry  and 
trigonometry,  and  calculus  and  theory  of  functions  and  group  the- 
ory, and  other  subjects  of  which  I do  not  even  know  the  names,  in 
such  a way  as  to  have  a large  body  of  knowledge,  and  yet  not  have  at 
any  time  attained  to  a point  where  on  his  own  account  he  can  solve 
difficult  problems,  on  his  own  account  start  out  into  some  field  of 
work,  on  his  own  account  judge  properly  the  scientific  value  of  the 
work  of  other  men.  Now  it  is  this  last  attainment,  that  of  an  inde- 
pendent judgment,  which  it  seems  to  me  is  the  fundamental  one  in 
the  development  of  a successful  practitioner  of  any  profession,  I 
care  not  what  it  is.  The  physician,  for  instance,  should  not  expect 
to  know  at  his  graduation  how  to  treat  all  diseases,  or  perhaps  any 
disease  at  all,  in  any  very  efficient  way.  He  ought  to  know  how  to 
study  the  diseases  and  how  to  go  to  work  to  plan  a method  of  treat- 
ment and  carry  it  out.  He  ought  to  be  in  a condition  to  check  up 
his  opinions  in  one  direction  by  actual  scientific  observations.  He 
ought  to  know  how  to  make  these  observations.  He  ought  to  be  able 
to  judge  as  to  their  bearing  upon  one  another,  etc.  In  other  words 
he  should  be  able  by  the  application  of  his  scientific  method  to  un- 
dertake the  solution  of  the  problem  before  him.  A man  who  knows 
the  whole  pharmaceutical  field,  and  has  by  heart  the  whole  descrip- 
tion as  to  how  he  should  administer  drugs,  wrould  be  perhaps  a 
learned  physician,  but  would  not  be  a scientific  physician.  He 
would  not  be  a man  who  could  be  relied  upon  to  meet  any  new  situ- 
ation in  a successful  way,  and  this  should  be  rather  the  test  of  ade- 
quate professional  education. 

In  other  words,  the  university  should  train  these  people  who 
are  to  practice  these  various  professions  in  such  a way  that  they 
have  the  requisite  mental  development  and  the  requisite  knowledge 
to  grapple  in  a scientific  manner  with  all  the  various  problems 
which  come  before  them  in  the  actual  practice  of  their  professions. 
A clay  worker,  for  example,  the  ceramist,  or  keramist  as  he  may 


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be  called,  should  know  not  only  the  formulas  which  may  have  been 
developed  up  to  the  time  he  goes  into  business  concerning  the  proper 
treatment  of  clays  for  the  purpose  of  making  brick  or  fine  china, 
but  he  should  have  such  fundamental  knowledge  of  chemistry  and 
the  allied  sciences  that  he  can  determine  beyond  any  doubt,  so  far 
as  our  present  knowledge  extends,  or  his  possibility  of  adding  to 
knowledge  extends,  what  any  particular  situation  in  defective  clays 
or  defective  treatment  calls  for. 

In  other  words,  using  this  term  in  a large  sense,  the  university 
should  train  its  students  to  become  independent  and  original  inves- 
tigators each  in  his  own  field,  each  standing  on  his  own  feet,  each 
able  to  form  an  independent  judgment  over  against  himself  and 
all  other  people. 

This  is  a very  different  ideal  from  that  of  the  learned  student, 
and  if  accomplished  it  would  be  a very  different  result  from  that 
which  is  characteristic  on  the  average  of  our  American  colleges; 
but  I believe  it  is  the  ideal  upon  which  the  development  of  the  uni- 
versity depends. 

If  this  be  the  correct  ideal,  then  it  is  perfectly  evident  that  the 
professors  in  such  an  institution  must  themselves  be  original  in- 
vestigators, must  themselves  be  men  of  independent  judgment  and 
independent  power  within  their  own  departments,  and  the  faculty 
of  the  university,  therefore,  should  be  made  up  of  men  each  of 
whom  is  contributing  by  his  own  personal  endeavors  to  the  scientific 
advance  of  his  subject,  and  no  man  should  be  a member  of  a uni- 
versity faculty  in  this  sense  of  the  term  wrho  does  not  fall  within 
that  category. 

Thus  vre  see  that  such  a university  wrould  inevitably  become  by 
the  very  law  of  its  own  being  a center  of  scientific  investigation  and 
research,  a center  from  which  should  pour  forth  as  from  a boiling 
spring,  in  every  direction,  streams  of  private  wTork  and  private  ef- 
fort, swelling  the  great  tide  of  human  science,  increasing  in  every 
direction  our  hold  over  nature  and  over  ourselves,  and  raising  so- 
ciety to  an  ever  higher  level. 

If  this  exposition  be  justified,  one  question  which  is  often  asked 
in  regard  to  state  universities  answers  itself,  namely  what  is  tin1 
relation  of  the  state  university  to  research.  Why,  research  is  the 
fife  of  the  state  university!  It  is  fundamental  to  it!  Without 
that  it  could  not  be  a university  in  any  proper  sense  of  the  term. 
If  its  professors  are  not  doing  this,  they  are  not  qualified  to  give 
the  training  which  wTe  have  in  mind  for  the  youth  of  the  state  who 


Ml 


22 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


gc  there.  So  that  research,  investigation,  is  a fundamental  and 
necessary  quality  of  the  state  university,  which  is  going  to  do  for 
the  people  of  the  state  the  service  which  they  have  a right  to  expect. 

In  the  light  of  this  discussion  I think  we  may  go  back  to  our 
definition  of  the  university,  and  say  that  a university  is  not  only 
an  educational  institution,  not  only  a place  for  the  training  of 
young  people,  but  is  also  a great  center  of  scientific  investigation, 
and  that  these  are  the  two  fundamental  qualities  in  any  university, 
and  therefore,  of  course,  of  the  state  university. 

There  are  two  other  points  which  I should  like  to  bring  out,  and 
with  that  I shall  have  to  leave  the  subject  for  your  further  consider- 
ation ; namely,  what  can  this  institution  thus  defined,  as  fundamen- 
tally a great  center  of  scientific  investigation  and  a great  center 
for  the  professional  training  of  the  youth  of  the  community — what 
else  can  it  do  for  the  state  ? What  other  service  can  it  render  to 
society  without  interfering  with  these  fundamental  purposes,  or, 
if  you  please,  what  other  services  can  it  render  which  will  of  them- 
selves increase  the  efficiency  of  these  two  functions  which  we  have 
described  ? 

It  may,  first  of  all,  itself  become  in  a very  real  sense  the  scien- 
tific arm  of  the  state  government.  All  branches  of  the  state  gov- 
ernment find  it  necessary  from  time  to  time  to  have  the  advantage 
of  expert  scientific  advice  concerning  the  soundness  of  large  poli- 
cies. No  better  source  of  information  could  be  found  than  the 
properly  manned  scientific  departments  of  a great  state  university. 
And  they  may  properly  be  called  upon  to  render  the  state  such  serv- 
ice. 

The  scientific  departments  of  a state  government,  such  as  the 
geological  survey,  the  entomologist’s  office,  the  water  survey,  the 
forestry  division,  etc.,  should  all  be  organized  in  close  touch  with 
the  state  university. 

Two  dangers  lie  ever  present,  of  course,  in  such  close  co-opera- 
tion. 

First,  politics  may  be  so  strong  as  to  influence  the  scientific 
departments.  In  such  a case  the  close  union  can  only  be  produc- 
tive of  evil;  and  if  the  state  university  in  this  work  can  not  main- 
tain absolutely  its  scientific  independence,  it  should  avoid  such  co- 
operation as  it  would  the  pest. 

Second,  the  state  departments  may  only  wish  to  use  the  uni- 
versity to  do  their  routine  work  for  them,  e.  (].,  make  ordinary  chem- 
ical analyses  of  commercial  fertilizer,  ordinary  chemical  analyses 
of  water,  analyses  of  coal  for  its  public  institutions,  etc.  Such  a 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


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relationship  is  also  full  of  practical  dangers.  The  university  may 
be  degraded  to  a mere  hewer  of  wood  and  drawer  of  water  for  other 
state  departments,  and  that  to  such  an  extent  as  to  interfere  seri- 
ously with  its  proper  work. 

By  watching  carefully  against  the  possibility  of  injury  from 
these  two  directions,  the  state  university  may  find  in  this  close  co- 
operation with  the  state  government  one  of  the  most  vital  and  hope- 
ful forms  of  its  activity.  To  do  this,  of  course,  its  chairs  must  be 
filled  by  competent  scientific  men. 

There  is  another  field  in  which  it  may  be  of  great,  perhaps  of 
the  greatest  of  all,  benefit  to  the  state  after  the  training  of  its 
young  people  to  their  highest  usefulness,  and  that  is  in  the  scien- 
tific investigation  of  the  great  problems  of  its  society.  This  is  a 
mere  extension  of  the  scientific  research  spoken  of  above.  But  I 
refer  here  to  the  systematic  investigation  of  the  large  practical 
problems  of  its  society ; such  work  as  is  now  going  on  in  the  agri- 
cultural experiment  stations  throughout  the  country,  begun  many 
years  ago,  and  as  is  being  done  in  the  engineering  experiment  sta- 
tions more  recently  started.  Here  an  effort  is  being  made  by  so- 
ciety in  its  corporate  capacity,  through  this  organ  of  its  life,  to  for- 
mulate and  solve  the  problems  which  present  themselves  from  time 
to  time  in  its  progress. 

Such  is  the  problem  of  how  to  secure  a permanent  agriculture ; 
the  problem  of  poverty  and  how  to  remedy  it;  the  many  problems 
of  engineering;  the  problems  of  manufacturing  so  far  as  they  de- 
pend on  scientific  elements ; the  problems  of  insurance  and  of  bank- 
ing and  railroading — in  a word,  any  and  all  the  questions  which 
arise  in  the  course  of  a developing  civilization,  and  the  answer  to 
which  depends  chiefly  or  wholly  upon  scientific  investigation. 

We  are,  in  our  army  and  navy,  studying  the  problem  of  how 
to  kill  the  largest  number  of  men  at  the  smallest  possible  expense, 
and  creating  machines  to  do  this.  We  have  repeatedly  spent  more 
upon  a single  modern  leviathan  than  any  state  has  spent  in  fifty 
years  upon  the  buildings  and  equipment  of  its  state  university. 

When  we  conscientiously  devote  to  the  scientific  study  of  the 
pioblems  of  peace  as  much  money  as  we  devote  to  preparing  for 
war,  we  shall  make  progress  at  a rate  of  speed  such  as  the  world 
has  never  seen. 

When  we  devote  as  much  money  to  the  scientific  study  of  the 
prevention  of  poverty  and  disease  as  we  do  to  our  attempts  to  re- 
lieve or  cure  it,  the  world  will  take  on  a new  face  and  we  shall  in- 
deed see  ere  long  a new  heaven  and  a new  earth. 


24 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


In  closing,  I should  like,  if  I might,  to  send  a message  through 
this  audience  to  the  people  of  this  great  state. 

You  have  here  a noble  institution — an  institution  of  which  you 
and  your  children  may  well  be  increasingly  proud,  because  of  the 
great  service  which  it  has  rendered  and  which  it  may  render  you 
and  yours. 

But  the  conditions  on  which  you  may  get  this  service,  and  on 
which  you  may  feel  this  pride,  are  set  by  the  nature  of  things,  and 
the  nature  of  things  is  something  you  cannot  get  away  from. 

If  you  permit  any  men  or  set  of  men  to  manage  this  institution 
as  if  it  were  a respecter  of  persons  you  can  have  no  pride  in  it — but 
only  a feeling  of  humiliation  when  you  think  of  it  and  its  work. 

If  you  appoint  any  man  to  a position  in  its  faculty  because  he 
is  a democrat  or  a republican  or  an  insurgent  or  a socialist,  or  for 
any  other  reason  than  because  he  is  the  best  man  pedagogically  and 
scientifically  whom  you  can  find,  with  due  reference,  of  course,  to 
that  fundamental  consideration  of  character — surely  you  will  have 
no  pride  in  such  an  institution. 

If  you  appoint  a man  to  a position  because  he  is  a citizen  of  In- 
diana, or  because  he  is  a Methodist,  or  a Baptist,  or  a Catholic ; or 
because  he  is  a son  or  nephew  of  a member  of  the  board  of  trustees 
or  of  a dean  or  professor  in  the  university ; or  because  he  is  a Swede 
or  Norwegian  or  German  or  Yankee,  you  will  surely  in  the  long  run 
have  to  hang  your  head  in  shame,  for  in  this  way  no  university  can 
be  built  up. 

Political,  territorial,  sectarian,  and  family  considerations  must 
be  absolutely  barred  in  the  choice  of  members  of  your  faculty,  or 
you  will  never  be  able  to  build  up  a true  university  at  all. 

Science  knows  no  country,  no  sect,  no  political  party,  no  family, 
and  in  seeking  for  your  servants — the  members  of  this  faculty — 
you  must  take  them  where  you  find  them. 

This,  friends,  is  not  a mere  idle  remark.  I could  name  you  in- 
stitutions today,  some  of  them  well  known  and  of  good  repute, 
which  are  suffering  sorely  because  the  trustees  have  selected  some 
men  because  of  their  political  affiliations;  others  because  of  mem- 
bership in  particular  sects ; others  because  they  were  born  in  a par- 
ticular state;  still  others  because  they  were  sons  or  relatives  of 
trustees,  president,  or  members  of  a faculty. 

The  favoritism  of  family — one  of  the  worst  forms  of  illegiti- 
mate influence — is  the  curse  of  more  than  one  great  institution  of 
learning  in  the  United  States  today. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBEB 


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Out  upon  all  such  forms  of  betrayal  of  trust — for  such  it  is  to 
appoint  any  man  to  a university  position  because  of  any  other 
reason  than  that  he  is  the  best  man  for  that  task  who  can  be  found 
at  that  salary  in  all  the  world! 

But,  citizens  of  Indiana,  having  found  the  best  man  for  the  sal- 
ary you  are  able  and  willing  to  pay,  you  must  do  certain  other 
things  if  you  wish  to  get  the  service  you  are  looking  for. 

First  of  all,  you  must  give  him  adequate  equipment  in  labora- 
tories and  libraries  to  enable  him  to  do  his  work  properly. 

You  must,  then,  give  him  the  necessary  time  and  assistance  so 
that  he  can  do  original  work,  carry  on  his  researches  along  some 
useful  line. 

Above  all — and  this,  friends,  is  something  which  large  portions 
of  our  American  people  are  even  yet  unwilling  to  do — you  must 
leave  him  absolute  freedom  to  follow  his  investigation  after  truth, 
no  matter  whither  it  leads  him. 

Some  people  are  still  unwilling  to  permit  the  geologist  to  follow 
his  investigation  if  it  should  seem  to  threaten  the  accuracy  of  the 
story  of  the  Noachian  deluge;  others  would  not  permit  a man  to 
demonstrate  the  fallacy  of  16  to  1,  or  vice  versa.  You  can  still  send 
the  cold  chills  down  the  spine  of  many  of  our  worthy  fellow  citi- 
zens by  crying  out  that  the  college  professors  are  blasting  at  the 
Rock  of  Ages,  or  that  the  teaching  of  professor  so-and-so  leads 
straight  to  socialism.  And  I heard  a very  distinguished  business 
man  say  not  long  ago,  that  if  he  had  his  way  a gag  would  be  put 
in  the  mouth  of  Jane  xlddams  and  all  similar  apostles  of  socialism. 

The  university  must  be  free  to  pursue  scientific  investigation 
with  absolute  freedom — the  alliteration  is  intentional — or  it  is  not 
a university  at  all. 

Now  the  people  of  the  state  must  in  their  own  interest  insist 
on  this  and  maintain  it  unimpaired,  since  a thousand  and  one  “in- 
terests” are  ever  striving  to  close  the  mouth  of  anyone  whose  mes- 
sage threatens  their  welfare. 

In  this  great  work  of  building  up  a university  which  shall  bo 
as  comprehensive  in  its  organization  as  the  needs  of  the  common- 
wealth itself,  the  people  of  our  American  states  will  find  it  neces- 
sary to  be  on  their  guard  against  advices  of  many  kinds  in  their 
own  midst. 

Some  will  tell  you  that  you  do  not  need  scientific  men  as  law- 
yers or  doctors  or  farmers — all  you  need  is  “practical”  men- -by 
practical  men  they  mean  ignorant  men,  routine  men,  rule-of-thumb 


26 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


men — just  the  kind  of  men  whom  modern  progress  is  relegating  to 
the  background  as  fast  as  our  most  advanced  steel  mills  are  scrap- 
ping their  old  plants.  Beware  of  them  and  their  leaven — it  means 
stagnation,  falling  behind  in  the  race,  dropping  out  of  the  proces- 
sion altogether. 

Others  will  tell  you  to  save  your  money.  Harvard  and  Yale  and 
Princeton,  Michigan,  Pennsylvania  and  Cornell,  Wisconsin  and 
Minnesota,  will  furnish  all  the  training  which  our  lawyers,  doc- 
tors, farmers  and  engineers  need.  You  can  draw  upon  them  and 
save  the  money  and  the  trouble. 

This  sounds  plausible — all  the  more  because  we  have  drawn  so 
largely  upon  these  sources  for  the  supply  of  our  leaders  in  many 
lines. 

But  such  a policy  is  a losing  one  for  a great  commonwealth. 

The  richest  men  in  the  community — your  bankers,  your  suc- 
cessful lawyers,  may  go  to  Chicago,  or  New  York,  or  even  Paris, 
Berlin,  or  Vienna  if  they  need  the  service  of  some  great  specialist 
in  medicine  or  surgery.  They  may  even  bring  such  a man  to  this 
country  to  aid  their  family,  as  Mr.  Armour  is  said  to  have  paid 
Dr.  Lorenz  $30,000  to  make  a trip  to  Chicago  to  treat  his  little 
daughter.  But  you  and  I,  and  the  rest  of  the  common  run  of  men, 
cannot  do  this.  We  must  be  content  with  the  best  we  can  get  at 
home,  and  the  best  we  can  get  at  home  as  a regular  thing  is  not  the 
best  of  Paris  or  Berlin  or  London,  but  the  best  that  our  own  schools 
will  provide. 

If  a great  corporation  wishes  a lawyer  to  represent  its  interests 
it  can  get  one  where  it  will,  but  the  people  of  Indiana  will  get  to 
represent  their  interests  as  a rule  only  the  best  which  Indiana  itself 
produces  and  trains. 

If  the  people  of  Indiana  then  wish  well  trained  physicians,  den- 
tists, pharmacists,  lawyers,  farmers,  engineers,  architects,  chemists, 
physicians — they  can  get  them  in  the  large  and  in  the  long  run 
only  by  producing  them  themselves.  And  the  only  way  it  can  pro- 
vide them  is  to  develop  the  modern  university  to  the  full  stature 
of  its  perfection. 

Massachusetts  cannot  do  this  for  you,  nor  Connecticut,  nor  New 
Jersey,  nor  Michigan,  nor  Wisconsin,  nor  Illinois — but  only  Indi- 
ana. 

May  God  speed  you  in  this  undertaking ! One  word  more : You 
have  a great  leader  in  this  great  work.  You  have  a man  who  by 
common  consent  is  peculiarly  well  adapted  for  this  undertaking — 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


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a man  of  scholarship,  of  tried  administrative  ability,  of  pleasing 
qualities;  now  stand  by  him — one  and  all,  students,  faculty  and 
citizens.  Be  thoroughly  loyal  to  him  and  his  leadership  while  he 
holds  this  position.  He  can  do  twice  as  much  if  he  feels  that  you 
are  with  him,  heart  and  soul,  as  he  can  when  you  stand  off  and  say 
“go  in  and  win  if  you  can.”  You  wish  him  to  win — his  victory  is 
your  victory — so  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder.  The  work  of  a uni- 
versity president  is  hard  enough  at  the  very  best.  Make  it  as  easy 
as  you  can,  so  will  he  do  all  the  more  for  you  and  your  children. 

Illinois  brings  you  a hearty  greeting  and  prays  for  President 
Bryan  and  the  University  of  Indiana  an  ever  increasing  prosperity. 


28 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH  OF  GENERAL  WALTER  Q. 

GRESHAM 

By  Professor  James  A.  Woodburn. 

The  principal  events  in  General  Gresham’s  public  career  were 
his  admission  to  the  bar  in  1854;  his  service  in  the  State  Legisla- 
ture in  the  winter  of  1860-61;  his  four  years’  service  as  a soldier 
in  the  Civil  War;  his  service  as  United  States  District  Judge  for 
Indiana,  1869-1883;  his  service  in  President  Arthur’s  cabinet  as 
Postmaster-General  and  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  in  1883-84  ; 
again  as  judge  of  the  United  States  Circuit  Court  from  1884  to 
1893;  and  his  service  as  Secretary  of  State  in  President  Cleveland’s 
cabinet  from  March,  1893,  till  his  death  in  May,  1895.  In  this 
career  from  humble  life  to  high  place  of  power  and  influence,  what 
was  the  nature  of  the  service  he  rendered  and  what  was  the  char- 
acter of  the  man  revealed? 

To  understand  a man  we  need  first  to  understand  his  ancestry 
and  the  environment  which  produced  him.  In  early  life  and  train- 
ing Gresham’s  career  was  not  greatly  unlike  that  of  Lincoln’s  and 
he  was  to  a notable  extent  of  the  Lincoln  type.  His  father  had  en- 
dured pioneer  trials  and  conditions  and  he  himself  knew  the  train- 
ing that  comes  from  early  struggles  and  adversities. 

Walter  Q.  Gresham  was  of  English  descent  on  his  father’s  side. 
He  was  born  on  a farm  near  the  village  of  Lanesville  in  Harrison 
County,  Indiana,  March  17,  1832.  Harrison  is  one  of  the  old 
counties  of  the  State  and  is  of  more  than  usual  interest  in  the 
State’s  early  history.  Corvdon,  its  county  seat,  was  for  three  years 
the  territorial  capital  and  for  nine  years  the  capital  of  the  State. 
Under  the  shadow  of  its  historic  elm  our  first  Constitution  was 
made.  In  this  region  lived  many  of  the  early  founders  of  the  State, 
the  Heths,  the  Floyds,  the  Jenningses,  the  Pfrimmers,  the  Penning- 
tons and  others  who  were  active  and  prominent  in  early  Indiana 
life. 

Gresham’s  grandfather,  George  Gresham,  came  from  Virginia, 
abiding  awhile  in  Kentucky,  settling  in  Indiana  in  1809,  the  year 
of  Lincoln’s  birth  and  before  Tom  Lincoln  had  thought  of  moving 
into  the  Indiana  Territory. 

Gresham’s  father  was  born  in  Kentucky  but  he  grew  up  in  In- 
diana under  conditions  very  like  those  that  Lincoln  knew.  He  was 
tall,  athletic,  hardy,  handsome,  and  popular,  of  notable  personal 
courage,  just  the  kind  to  be  elected,  as  he  was  almost  by  common 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


29 


consent,  as  the  captain  of  militia  and  the  sheriff  of  his  county.  As 
a backwoods  sheriff  he  had  to  do  pioneer  work  for  civilization.  As 
a servant  of  the  State  he  suffered  a martyr’s  death  for  law  and 
order,  being  instantly  killed  while  in  line  of  duty  in  an  attempt  to 
arrest  a desperado  and  an  outlaw.  Gresham’s  father  thus  died  in 
one  sense  like  a soldier  of  civilization  on  the  field  of  battle,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-two,  leaving  a widow  and  five  small  children.  The 
oldest  was  eight  and  Walter  was  two,  and  the  widowed  mother 
under  most  trying  circumstances  was  to  become  both  father  and 
mother  to  her  little  brood. 

Mrs.  Gresham  was  a remarkable  woman.  Her  father  and  mother, 
John  Davis  and  his  wife,  came  through  Virginia  and  Kentucky  to 
the  West.  They  were  of  Scotch-Irish  descent  and  of  long-lived 
stock.  They  were  old  fashioned  folks  in  their  ways.  They  had 
sixteen  children,  ten  sons  and  six  daughters,  and  Sarah  Davis,  the 
mother  of  Walter  Q.  Gresham,  was  one  of  these.  She  lived,  like 
all  of  her  brothers  and  sisters,  except  two,  to  a ripe  old  age,  and  to 
her  humble  cabin  in  her  declining  years  her  distinguished  son  made 
annual  pilgrimages,  and  these  visits  to  his  mother  and  to  his  old 
Harrison  County  home  were  the  chiefest  joy  of  his  life. 

Wat  Gresham,  as  the  people  called  him  in  the  neighborhood, 
grew  up  on  his  mother’s  farm.  He  had  two  or  three  winter’s 
schooling,  in  primitive  country  schools  where,  as  Lincoln  said,  they 
taught  “readin’,  writin’  and  cipherin’  to  the  rule  of  three.”  He 
had  but  few  books  to  read,  but  these  led  him  into  visions  of  greater 
things.  When  his  older  brother  returned  from  the  Mexican  War 
in  1848,  Walter  was  given  an  opportunity  to  go  to  Corydon  to  at- 
tend the  seminary  there,  whose  fame  was  known  through  the  coun- 
try around.  The  seminary  was  in  charge  of  James  G.  May,  one 
of  the  old-time  famous  teachers  of  early  Indiana.  Young  Gresham 
was  given  a clerkship  in  the  auditor’s  office,  by  Samuel  Wright, 
the  county  auditor,  a friend  of  the  Gresham  family,  and  by  this 
means  the  young  student  was  able  to  earn  enough  to  pay  for  his 
board.  Gresham  studied  two  years  in  the  Corydon  Academy,  and 
then  he  came  a year  (1850-1851)  to  the  State  University  at  Bloom- 
ington. He  returned  to  Corydon  to  act  as  deputy  clerk,  and  for 
three  years  in  this  office  he  spent  his  leisure  hours  in  studying  law 
under  Judge  Wm.  A.  Porter,  a noted  lawyer  in  southern  Indiana, 
Porter  was  a graduate  of  Miami  University,  who  in  1827  had  set- 
tled in  Harrison  County,  where  he  taught  school  and  afterwards 
practiced  law.  Gresham  often  said  in  later  life  that  Porter’s  teach- 
ing was  the  training  that  made  him. 


30 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


Gresham  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1854.  It  was  the  year  of 
the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  by  the  Kansas-Nebraska 
Act,  one  of  the  most  important  legislative  acts  in  American  history. 
The  country  was  in  political  ferment.  To  combine  law  and  poli- 
tics was  almost  the  universal  custom  in  the  west  and  the  young 
lawyer  at  Cory  don  proved  no  exception  to  the  rule.  The  Gresh- 
ams had  been  Whigs,  but  now  the  Whig  party  was  dissolving  and 
a new  party  was  arising.  Into  this  new  Republican  party,  created 
from  many  elements  for  the  purpose  of  withstanding  the  further 
spread  of  human  slavery  in  America,  Gresham  cast  his  lot  with 
youthful  and  patriotic  ardor.  In  1856  his  law  partner,  Judge 
Slaughter,  was  a delegate  from  Indiana  to  the  first  Republican 
national  nominating  convention  at  Philadelphia,  the  convention 
that  nominated  Fremont  for  the  Presidency.  Young  Gresham 
stumped  Harrison  County  for  the  “Pathfinder,”  and  to  his  meet- 
ings he  carried  the  New  York  Tribune  and  solicited  subscriptions 
to  Greeley’s  paper,  which  showed  that  he  knew  well  the  reasons  for 
the  faith  that  was  in  him.  His  habit  was  to  appeal  to  the  reason 
rather  than  to  the  prejudices  of  his  hearers. 

In  1858  Mr.  Gresham  married  Miss  Matilda  McGrain,  a daughter 
of  Thomas  McGrain,  of  Scotch-Irish  descent.  Miss  McGrain  was 
born  in  Louisville  and  was  educated  in  Kentucky,  but  her  father’s 
business  took  the  family  much  of  the  time  to  Corydon,  where  young 
Gresham  wooed  and  won  his  Kentucky  belle.  Thomas  McGrain  was 
a slaveholder  and  a sympathizer  with  the  South  during  the  war, 
though  the  daughter  cast  her  lot  and  sympathy  with  the  Union. 
Mrs.  Gresham  herself  knew  many  of  the  officers  of  General  Morgan, 
the  raider,  who  brought  his  invading  forces  into  Indiana  in  1863. 
Many  of  the  Corydon  people  thought  it  strange  that  she  could  help 
nurse  Morgan’s  men  who  were  wounded  in  the  skirmish  at  Cory- 
don. While  this  connection  of  General  Gresham  with  a Kentucky 
slaveholding  family  did  not  abate  his  Union  spirit  nor  his  anti- 
slavery views,  it  did,  no  doubt,  make  him  more  considerate  of  the 
feelings  and  sensibilities  of  those  on  the  other  side  in  our  great 
civil  conflict. 

To  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Gresham  were  born  two  children,  a son  and  a 
daughter.  We  have  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  having  the  mother 
and  the  son  with  us  today. 

In  1860  Mr.  Gresham  was  made  the  Republican  candidate  for 
the  Legislature  in  Harrison  County.  He  faced  an  adverse  Demo- 
cratic majority  of  500.  But  he  entered  upon  this  great  Lincoln 
campaign  with  spirit  and  conviction,  canvassed  every  school  dis- 


CO MMEN CE M E XT  N U M 15 E R 


31 


trict  in  the  county,  challenged  his  opponent  to  a joint  discussion, 
drove  him  in  discomfiture  from  the  platform,  and  scored  a victory 
in  the  election  by  a good  majority.  In  the  Legislature  lie  served 
on  the  committee  on  military  affairs,  and  he  proved  a valuable 
helper  and  coadjuter  to  Governor  Morton  in  placing  Indiana  on 
a better  war  footing. 

When  the  war  came  Gresham  was  appointed  by  Morton  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel of  the  Thirty-eighth  Indiana  Regiment,  but  before 
the  regiment  got  into  active  service  he  was  appointed  Colonel  of 
the  Fifty-third  Indiana,  in  December,  1861.  He  was  in  Grant’s 
command  in  the  West,  barely  missing  the  battle  of  Shiloh  by  being 
placed  in  command  to  guard  the  post  at  Savanna,  nine  miles  down 
the  Tennessee.  He  participated  in  the  siege  of  Corinth,  in  the  North 
Mississippi  campaign,  and  in  the  famous  siege  of  Vicksburg.  In  Au- 
gust, 1863,  after  Vicksburg  had  fallen,  Colonel  Gresham  was  made 
a Brigadier-General  on  the  recommendation  of  Generals  Grant  and 
Sherman,  and  was  placed  in  command  of  the  post  at  Natchez.  Here 
he  met  the  difficult  duty  of  restraining  the  cotton  speculators,  the 
cotton  thieves  and  smugglers,  who  flocked  to  Natchez  as  soon  as 
the  Union  arms  had  taken  possession.  In  Gresham  they  met  an  in- 
corruptible man.  Not  being  able  to  corrupt,  the  speculators  sought 
to  hoodwink  and  deceive.  They  employed  a noted  lawyer,  a friend 
of  Gresham’s,  who  had  been  a colonel  of  a Union  regiment  at  Shi- 
loh. It  was  expected  that  this  attorney  would  control  the  General, 
and  that  the  crooked  cotton  operations  might  go  on  uninterrupted. 
The  upshot  of  the  matter  was  that  General  Gresham  invited  the 
lawyer  colonel  to  leave  Natchez  before  sundown  on  pain  of  being 
sent  away  in  irons.  The  irate  colonel  and  cotton  attorney  went  off 
to  headcpiarters  to  appeal  to  General  Grant.  “Did  Gresham  say 
he  would  put  you  in  irons?”  asked  Grant.  “He  did,”  responded 
the  indignant  colonel.  “Well,  then,”  said  Grant,  “I  advise  you  to 
stay  away  from  Natchez,  for  I have  always  found  Gresham  a man 
of  his  word.” 

In  the  summer  of  1864  Gresham  took  part  in  the  campaign 
against  Atlanta.  He  was  under  McPherson’s  command.  At  Leg- 
gett’s Hill  on  July  20,  1864,  the  day  before  McPherson  fell,  Gresh- 
am’s knee  was  shattered  by  a ball,  and  that  severe  wound  on  Leg- 
gett’s Hill  inflicted  a lameness  from  which  he  never  recovered. 
General  McPherson  himself  gave  personal  attention  to  having  Gen- 
eral Gresham  conveyed  to  the  railway  station,  and  the  next  day 
at  the  station  Gresham  saw  the  remains  of  his  general,  who  had 
been  killed  the  day  after  their  parting  on  the  field  of  battle.  Gresh- 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


32 

am’s  wound  forced  his  retirement  from  active  service.  He  lay  at 
home  for  the  best  part  of  a year  before  he  was  able  to  attend  to 
any  work.  At  the  end  of  the  war,  in  1865,  he  was  breveted  Major- 
General  for  “gallant  and  meritorious  conduct”  on  the  field  of 
battle. 

After  the  war  he  continued  his  interest  in  politics.  He  was  the 
Republican  candidate  for  Congress  in  the  New  Albany  district  in 
1866  and  1868  against  Hon.  Michael  C.  Kerr,  an  able  and 
popular  Democrat,  who  was  afterwards  elected  Speaker  of  the 
House  of  Representatives.  Gresham  reduced  the  Democratic  ma- 
jority in  his  district,  and  he  ran  ahead  of  his  ticket  in  every  county. 

When  General  Grant  became  President  he  offered  Gresham  the 
collectorship  of  the  Port  at  New  Orleans  and  the  District  Attorney- 
ship  for  Indiana,  but  both  of  these  lucrative  offices  Gresham  de- 
clined. Grant  then  offered  him  the  appointment  of  United  States 
District  Judge  for  Indiana,  which  he  accepted,  and  it  is  said  that 
in  his  more  than  twelve  years  incumbency  in  that  office  not  one  of 
his  judicial  decisions  was  overruled. 

In  1883  Judge  Gresham  was  called  into  the  cabinet  of  President 
Arthur  as  Postmaster-General.  He  served  but  a short  time  in  this 
office,  but  his  postal  service  will  be  distinguished  in  history  for  two 
notable  achievements : He  accomplished  the  reduction  in  letter 
postage  from  three  cents  to  two,  and  he  excluded  the  Louisiana 
Lottery  from  the  use  of  the  mails.  For  either  of  these  achieve- 
ments a Postmaster-General  should  have  a memorial  tablet.  Neither 
was  accomplished  without  great  effort.  In  his  report  in  1883 
Gresham  made  a strong  argument  for  cheaper  postage,  arraying 
statistics  to  show  that  the  reform  was  feasible,  and  he  personally 
interested  himself  in  the  cause  to  the  extent  of  seeing  and  enlight- 
ening members  of  Congress.  It  can  be  easily  imagined  to  what 
kind  of  pressure  Gresham  became  subject  when  he  set  out  to  oppose 
the  Louisiana  Lottery.  There  was  a powerful  and  unscrupulous 
lobby  to  fight.  But  the  Postmaster-General  had  in  large  measure 
the  spirit  of  a reformer;  he  had  the  courage  of  his  ancestry,  and  a 
burning  hatred  of  dishonesty  and  fraud.  He  fought  that  battle  to 
a finish  and  put  a gigantic  and  swindling  lottery  out  of  business. 

Gresham  held  the  secretaryship  of  the  Treasury  but  for  a brief 
interval  under  President  Arthur,  being  transferred  to  the  Treasury 
upon  the  death  of  Judge  Folger  of  New  York.  In  December,  1884, 
he  succeeded  Judge  Drummond  to  the  bench  of  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court,  holding  his  court  in  Chicago.  In  his  nine  years  of 
service  in  this  court  he  heard  and  decided  many  important  cases 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


33 


calling  for  judicial  fairness,  fearlessness,  and  impartiality.  Here 
he  met  the  same  kind  of  influences,  perhaps  more  subtle  and  power- 
ful, that  he  had  had  to  resist  when  he  met  the  cotton  thieves  at 
Natchez  and  the  forces  of  the  Louisiana  Lottery  in  the  postoffice. 

The  famous  Wabash  case  will  best  illustrate  the  character  of 
Gresham’s  service  on  the  bench.  It  is  not  easy  to  condense  the 
complicated  history  of  that  celebrated  case.  There  was  a ring  of 
railroad  managers  with  Jay  Gould  and  Russell  Sage  at  its  head. 
They  were  men  of  vast  wealth  and  influence,  representing  “big 
business,”  such  men  as  were  usually  “Democrats  before  a Demo- 
cratic legislature,  Republicans  before  a Republican  legislature,  but 
always  for  the  Wabash.”  Their  end  was  money,  which  they  sought 
by  hook  or  by  crook.  They  were  not  used  to  being  circumvented  by 
trivial  matters  like  law  and  equity  nor  by  little  judges  upon  the 
bench.  These  railroad  managers,  under  whose  management  their 
road  had  become  bankrupt,  anticipated  their  creditors  by  institut- 
ing foreclosure  proceedings,  and  through  a shrewd  attorney  and  a 
pliant  judge  secured  the  appointment  of  their  own  nominee  as  re- 
ceiver, thus  really  retaining  control  of  the  road.  This  receiver, 
supposed  to  be  an  officer  of  the  court,  made  a carrying  contract 
with  a coal  company,  all  of  the  stock  of  which  was  held  by  himself 
and  his  friends  in  the  ring,  and  under  this  contract  the  railroad 
paid  back  to  the  coal  company  in  rebates — the  left  hand  paying  to 
the  right — a sum  exceeding  its  entire  capital  stock.  This  receiver 
contrived  also  to  pay  interest  on  the  bonds  held  by  those  bond- 
holders in  the  ring  and  to  default  in  interest  payment  to  those  who 
stood  out  against  the  nefarious  scheme  of  reorganization.  That  is 
to  say,  the  receiver  managed  the  road  not  in  the  interest  of  the 
honest  stockholders  and  bondholders  who  had  invested  their  money 
in  the  road,  but  in  the  interest  of  Jay  Gould,  and  his  associates, 
who  had  wrecked  the  road  for  their  own  gain.  It  was  financial 
piracy  under  the  forms  of  law  or  by  evasions  of  law.  Such  an 
operation  in  railroad  management  may  not  have  been  unusual  in 
those  days.  But  Gould’s  operation  in  this  case  came  up  against 
something  unusual.  That  was  Walter  Q.  Gresham,  an  honest,  fear- 
less judge  upon  the  bench,  who  believed  in  popular  rights  and 
who  dared  to  resist  the  vast  power  of  wealth.  When  a suit  was 
brought  before  Gresham  for  setting  aside  the  previous  proceedings 
he  cut  through  the  sophistry  and  the  intricate  points  in  the  law  by 
which  adroit  attorneys  had  sought  to  confuse  the  case,  and  rendered 
a decision  leading  to  the  discharge  of  the  recreant  receivers,  and 
putting  the  Wabash  lines  east  of  the  Missouri  in  the  hands  of  the 


34 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


great  jurist,  Judge  Thomas  M.  Cooley,  of  Michigan,  an  honest  man, 
who  had  the  confidence  of  all,  who  would  conduct  the  road  in  the 
interest  of  its  owners,  and  who  would  act  as  an  officer  of  the  court 
instead  as  an  agent  of  Gould,  Sage  & Co. 

The  Wabash  decision  revealed  a progressive  judge,  and  the  case 
will  alwaj^s  stand  out  in  the  history  of  American  regulation  of  rail- 
ways as  a landmark  in  judicial  control  of  great  public  utilities  and 
corporations.  Other  more  conservative  judges  have  since  followed 
in  Gresham ’s  steps,  with  the  result  that  real  investments  and  public 
interests  are  being  better  protected  by  the  courts  and  the  people 
are  coming  into  their  own.  When  the  Wabash  decision  was  ren- 
dered Jay  Gould  said,  “That  man  Gresham  must  be  a candidate  for 
the  presidency.”  It  is  safe  to  say  today,  as  we  note  the  moral 
courage  and  purposes  of  Gresham ’s  decision,  that  only  the  Gresham 
kind  will  ever  again  receive  the  approval  of  the  American  people 
for  that  high  office.  Gresham  heralded  the  dawn  of  what  is  now 
our  high  noon.  Shall  the  Government  control  the  railroads,  or  shall 
the  railroads  control  the  Government?  There  was  serious  doubt 
on  that  issue  a quarter  of  a century  ago.  Judge  Gresham’s  railroad 
decisions  materially  helped  to  solve  the  doubt  in  the  interest  of  the 
people. 

Gresham  was  a candidate  for  the  presidency  before  the  Repub- 
lican nominating  convention  in  1888,  the  year  General  Harrison 
was  nominated.  He  had  a large  popular  support  and  received  122. 
votes  in  the  convention,  but  General  Harrison  had  the  party  or- 
ganization behind  him  in  Indiana,  and  as  Gresham  had  not  been  an 
ardent  supporter  of  Blaine,  the  forces  that  controlled  the  delegates 
were  not  attached  to  his  more  popular  and  democratic  cause.  The 
regular  party  men  had  come  to  look  upon  him  with  disfavor,  and 
if  the  term  had  then  been  in  use,  he  would  probably  have  been 
called  an  “Insurgent.”  He  had  been  a tariff  reformer  while  in 
Arthur’s  cabinet,  and  his  railroad  and  labor  decisions,  as  in  the 
Wabash  case  and  his  injunction  decision  in  the  C.,  B.  & Q.  strike, 
had  made  him  popular  with  the  laboring  men  and  radical  demo- 
cratic elements  of  the  country.  He  would  have  been  nominated 
for  the  presidency  by  the  Populist  party  in  1892  if  he  had  con- 
sented to  the  use  of  his  name.  He  believed,  in  common  with  this 
earnest  and  radical  party,  that  there  was  grave  danger  of  the  con- 
trol of  the  country  by  capitalism  and  great  combinations  of  wealth. 
When  his  party,  as  he  believed,  had  committed  itself  too  much  to 
these  interests  and  to  a permanent  policy  of  high  protection,  he 
came  out  in  a public  statement  of  great  weight  and  influence,  ad- 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


35 


vocating  the  election  of  Mr.  Cleveland,  thus  breaking  the  party  ties 
of  a lifetime.  When  Cleveland  became  President  he  invited  Gen- 
eral Gresham  to  be  his  Secretary  of  State,  and  the  country  wit- 
nessed the  spectacle  of  a life-long  Democrat  calling  a life-long  Re- 
publican to  the  chief  seat  in  his  cabinet  councils. 

In  the  State  office  Judge  Gresham  negotiated  an  important  and 
complicated  treaty  with  China  and  an  equally  important  treaty 
with  Japan,  covering  vexed  questions  of  exterritoriality  and  citi- 
zenship. By  a friendly  attitude  toward  Great  Britain  he  induced 
that  power  to  surrender  her  protectorate  over  the  Mosquito  Coast, 
thus  ending  a controversy  that  had  plagued  the  Department  of 
State  since  the  days  of  Marey,  under  Pierce.  He  pursued  a conserv- 
ative policy  toward  Hawaii,  and  sought  to  restore  the  government 
of  that  country  to  its  native  rulers,  refusing  to  permit  his  country 
to  profit  by  collusion  of  Americans  in  the  Hawaiian  revolution ; and 
for  this,  and  because  he  was  not  quick  to  threaten  other  powers  in 
defense  of  what  was  supposed  to  be  American  rights,  he  was  fero- 
ciously attacked  and  denounced  as  weak  and  un-American.  The 
whole  truth  was  that  he  was  not  a Jingo;  that  he  was  not  always 
ready  to  point  the  big  guns  at  other  powers,  nor  make  great  speeches 
to  foreign  diplomats  about  the  greatness  and  power  of  the  Ameri- 
can people.  He  loved  peace  and  pursued  it  earnestly,  and  he  aimed 
to  walk  in  dignified  and  courteous  ways.  “Judged  by  the  inter- 
national standard,”  said  the  New  York  Nation  at  the  time  of  his 
death,  “ — the  only  true  standard  by  which  to  judge  a Secretary  of 
State — Judge  Gresham  has  made  a great  success,  and  has  made 
American  honor,  capacity,  and  courtesy,  mean  more  than  they  have 
meant  in  many  a day.  He  fairly  earned  the  praise  bestowed  upon 
him  by  eminent  jurists  and  experts  in  international  law  as  the 
ablest  Secretary  the  country  has  had  since  Hamilton  Fish.” 

As  Postmaster-General,  United  States  ‘Judge,  and  Secretary  of 
State,  General  Gresham’s  career  illustrates  one  quality  supremely — 
the  moral  courage  required  to  face  powerful  interests  bent  upon  ex- 
ploiting the  public  for  selfish  ends.  Every  man  in  place  of  power 
and  responsibility  will  find  that  quality  tested  within  him.  Gen- 
eral Gresham  met  this  supreme  test  of  a real  man  in  a splendid 
way.  Judge  David  Davis,  a friend  of  Lincoln  and  a friend  of 
Gresham,  whom  Lincoln  appointed  to  the  Supreme  Bench,  said 
not  long  before  his  death  : “I  have  always  admired  Judge  Gresham 
far  beyond  anything  that  I ean  now  say  of  him,  but  T do  desire  to 
say  this,  that  I never  met  a man  who  possessed  the  moral  courage 
of  Judge  Gresham.” 


36 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


Such  is  a brief  summary  of  Gresham’s  career,  as  lawyer,  legis- 
lator, soldier,  magistrate,  cabinet  minister,  statesman,  friend  of  hu- 
manity. He  ran  a race  from  lowly  poverty  to  exalted  station  that 
could  hardly  be  run  in  any  other  land  than  America.  In  making 
official  announcement  of  his  death  to  his  countrymen  President 
Cleveland  referred  to  their  loss  of  “a  pure  and  able  public  ser- 
vant, a wise  and  patriotic  guardian  of  their  rights  and  interests, 
a manly  and  loyal  American  and  a generous  and  honorable  man.” 
This  man  was  an  undergraduate  student  here  sixty  years  ago. 
Later,  in  1883,  he  received  the  honorary  degree  of  LL.D.  from  the 
university.  We  claim  him  as  a son  of  our  common  alma  mater. 
To  the  young  men  of  Indiana,  the  purity,  the  unselfish  patriotism, 
and  the  moral  independence  of  his  life  will  ever  remain  a noble 
and  inspiring  example. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


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ADDRESS  OF  PRESENTATION 

By  Mr.  Otto  Gresham,  Chicago,  Illinois. 

“Let  ns  have  peace”  were  the  words  of  General  Grant,  and 
his  conduct  at  Appomattox  makes  it  plain  that  he  then  understood 
the  great  problem  of  the  day.  It  was  to  make  us  a united  and 
homogeneous  people. 

Commercialism  never  did  and  never  will  lead  a people  aright. 
The  seed  of  our  civil  strife  was  sown  in  the  compact  of  1787, 
which  the  lawyers  who  graduate  today  understand  as  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States.  This  seed  was  the  commercialism  of 
South  Carolina  and  Massachusetts.  Virginia,  led  by  James  Monroe, 
protested  that  the  compact — the  Constitution — or  the  sacred  instru- 
ment, if  you  please,  contained  too  much  slavery  or  commercialism. 
Massachusetts  was  more  to  blame  than  South  Carolina  because  she, 
after  the  separation  from  Great  Britain,  made  a practical  applica- 
tion of  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  em- 
bodied in  her  Constitution,  that  of  1780,  the  proposition  that  there 
could  not  be  property  in  man. 

The  development  of  our  industrial  system  may  make  the  cap- 
tains of  industry  a necessity,  but  we  should  not  be  dependent  upon 
them  for  our  system  of  education.  Well  may  Dr.  James  urge  the 
importance  of  instruction  by  the  state  in  legal  and  technical  sub- 
jects. It  is  for  the  benefit  of  all  the  people.  The  knowledge  or 
light  disseminated  here  will  be  reflected  back;  and  all  we  of  the 
smaller  college  desire,  is  to  aid  in  the  good  work.  As  a graduate 
and  trustee  of  Wabash  College,  I say  the  State  of  Indiana  should 
foster  and  liberally  support  the  public  and  high  school  system  with 
this  great  university  at  the  apex. 

The  sword  that  is  presented  to  you  was  not  as  an  original  gift 
a mere  emblem  of  brute  force.  It  was  wielded  in  no  spirit  of  con- 
quest, envy,  hate  or  malice,  but  to  preserve  our  glorious  union  for 
those  who  went  out  as  well  as  those  who  stayed  in.  These  are  some 
of  the  sentiments  which  came  to  us  from  the  fireside,  and  it  is  with 
these  in  view  that  we  offer  to  your  keeping  the  sword  that  is  pre- 
sented to  you  today. 


38 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


ADDRESS  OF  ACCEPTANCE 

By  President  William  Lowe  Bryan* 

Let  all  members  of  the  University,  the  undergraduates,  the  can- 
didates for  graduation,  the  alumni,  the  faculty  and  the  trustees  who 
will  join  in  receiving  this  memorial,  stand. 

Members  of  the  University,  let  the  receiving  of  this  sword  be  no 
empty  ceremony.  Let  us  make  it  an  act  of  piety  toward  our  sol- 
dier alumni;  toward  all  the  soldiers  of  Indiana  who  fifty  years  ago 
stood  for  their  ideal  of  justice  at  the  peril  of  their  lives;  and  es- 
pecially toward  the  bearer  of  this  sword,  who,  when  he  was  a pri- 
vate citizen,  and  when  he  was  judge  upon  the  federal  bench,  and 
when  he  was  a counselor  to  the  President,  showed  a courage  as  reso- 
lute for  justice  as  on  that  day  when  he  was  struck  down  upon  the 
field  of  battle. 

Let  the  receiving  of  this  sword  mean  also  that  we  ourselves  en- 
list. For  the  war  is  not  done.  The  war  for  justice  is  never  done. 

One  may  join  the  traitors  to  the  human  brotherhood  and  in 
whatever  occupation  may  live  by  preying  upon  the  lives  and  souls 
of  other  men. 

One  may  join  the  covrards  seeking  for  himself  a shameful  safety, 
as  those  of  whom  Dante  wrote : 

“They  are  mingled  with  the  abject  choir  of  angels  who  were 
not  rebellious  nor  were  faithful  to  God,  but  were  for  themselves. 
Heaven  chased  them  forth  to  keep  its  beauty  from  impair,  and  the 
deep  hell  receives  them  not,  for  the  wicked  would  have  some  glory 
over  them.” 

Let  it  not  be  so  with  us. 

Men  of  Indiana,  I charge  you  in  the  presence  of  this  sword  to 
enlist  for  some  good  fight.  Choose  your  cause.  Choose  the  cause 
which  your  soul  cannot  deny  wdthout  damnation.  But  when  you 
have  chosen,  then  if  you  would  possess  the  joy  or  the  value  of  a 
man  you  must  fight.  And  I charge  you  so  to  fight  that  in  the  end 
your  children  and  your  alma  mater  may  have  from  you  a memorial 
as  unblemished  as  Gresham’s  sword. 

And  now,  Walter  Gresham,  soldier,  lawyer,  jurist,  minister  of 
state,  vrhom  the  University  once  received  as  an  undergraduate  and 
upon  whom  it  once  conferred  its  highest  degree,  we  now  receive 
from  your  wife  and  son  this  perpetual  memorial  of  your  life. 


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THE  NEW  IDEALS 

Address  to  the  graduation  class  of  the  School  of  Law,  June  16,  1911, 
by  Judge  George  Du  Relle,  U.  S.  District  Attorney,  Louisville,  Kentucky. 

Some  dozen  years  ago  or  more,  in  one  of  the  Eastern  states, 
there  lived  a lawyer  on  whose  birth  Fortune  had  smiled.  All  the 
good  fairies  attended  with  exceeding  good  gifts.  A competence 
was  his,  enough  to  remove  the  fear  of  necessity,  but  not  enough  to 
dull  the  spur  of  ambition.  He  was  of  distinguished  family  on 
both  sides.  He  had  a robust  and  tireless  physique  and  a finished 
education.  His  appearance  was  fine,  but  not  too  fine,  his  manners 
engaging,  his  speech  both  fluent  and  effective.  Ilis  amazing  mem- 
ory seemed  to  attract  and  hold  facts  and  illustrations,  principles 
and  precedents,  as  a magnet  attracts  and  holds  iron  filings.  Physi- 
cally, mentally,  and  morally  he  was  trained  to  the  minute.  So 
strict  was  his  moral  training  that  when  lie  was  thirty  years  old 
he  had  never  seen  the  inside  of  a theater.  When  he  came  to  the 
bar,  his  capacity  and  his  connections  united  to  give  him  a clientage 
and  practice  such  as  rarely  falls  to  the  lot  of  so  young  a man.  lie 
was  equal  to  his  opportunities.  His  reputation  and  his  practice  in- 
creased. He  had  ambitions  and  ideals.  He  wished  to  render  pub- 
lic service.  Here  Fortune  smiled  again.  A high  and  important 
office  fell  vacant,  and  he  was  appointed  to  fill  the  vacancy.  Here 
again  he  rose  to  his  opportunities.  He  surpassed  the  expectation 
of  his  warmest  friends.  He  won  golden  opinions  from  the  luke- 
warm. One  grew  a little  tired  of  hearing  Aristides  called  “the 
just.”  The  time  to  fill  his  office  by  election  drew  near,  and  his 
election  was  conceded.  Just  then  a cpiestion  came  up  in  his  office, 
the  determination  of  which  might  almost  just  as  well,  but  not  quite 
as  well,  have  been  deferred  until  after  the  election.  If  it  were  de- 
termined one  way  it  would  greatly  please  a rich  and  powerful  poli- 
tician, and  all  his  adherents.  If  it  were  determined  the  other  way 
it  would  please  a couple  of  bankrupts.  Nothing  absolutely  required 
that  it  should  he  disposed  of  before  the  election  except  his  ideal 
of  the  duty  of  an  officer  of  the  state.  That  ideal  required  him  to 
determine  such  questions  as  they  arose,  if  he  could,  and  to  do  so 
without  regard  to  consequences.  He  determined  the  question  be- 
fore the  election.  The  rich  politician  was  outraged,  found  and 
brought  out  another  candidate — managed  and  financed  the  cam- 
paign and  financing  a campaign  meant  a good  deal  at  that  time. 


40 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


The  election  was  shamefully  and  shamelessly  corrupt.  On  the 
one  side  were  the  hosts  of  sin,  a veritable  Macedonian  phalanx,  dis- 
ciplined, prompt,  understanding  the  game — on  the  other  the  scat- 
tered friends  of  the  idealist,  who  had  the  courage,  with  broken 
ranks  and  untried  weapons,  on  foreign  territory,  to  enter  an  un- 
equal contest.  The  very  good  of  his  own  party  were  mostly  asleep 
in  their  pews.  The  very  good  of  the  other  party  saw  no  particular 
reason  for  breaking  party  ties  because  a gentleman  of  the  opposing 
party  had  done  what  was  merely  his  duty. 

He  was  beaten  by  a small  but  sufficient  majority.  Worse  still, 
some  of  his  friends  undertook  to  fight  the  devil  with  fire — to  carry 
the  war  into  Africa — and  made  a feeble  and  futile  effort  to  match 
corruption  with  corruption ; so  that  he  was  denied  the  poor  privi- 
lege of  claiming  that,  though  beaten  by  corruption,  his  own  skirts 
had  remained  immaculate. 

This  excellent  young  man  was  punished  for  attempting  to  live 
up  to  his  ideal  of  public  duty.  It  cured  him.  In  a financial  way 
it  was  a good  thing  for  him.  He  returned  to  the  practice,  of  the 
law.  His  clients  returned  to  him.  Corporate  wealth  recognized 
his  abilities  and  paid  for  their  exercise  whatever  the  traffic  would 
bear.  His  personal  character  remained  spotless.  Indeed  it  was 
one  of  his  most  valuable  assets.  Whenever  there  was  a public  move- 
ment which  met  the  approval  of  the  entire  so-called  better  element, 
his  name  headed  the  subscription  list.  His  aid  was  given  to  every 
church  or  charitable  undertaking  endorsed  by  the  respectable  rich. 
Also,  when  the  machine  of  his  party  had  run  too  deep  in  the  mire 
and  needed  rehabilitation  in  the  eye  of  the  public,  he  was  first 
choice  for  chairman,  and  so  high  did  he  stand  in  public  esteem  that 
his  mere  presence  gave  character  and  tone  to  the  meeting.  Also, 
his  corporations  received  semi-political  favors  which  other  corpora- 
tions found  it  difficult  to  obtain.  He  dispensed  an  apparently 
lavish  hospitality,  though  there  were  captious  critics  wrho  whispered 
that  each  guest  either  contributed  something  to  the  entertainment, 
a story,  a song,  a poem,  or  possessed  the  potentiality  of  contributing 
more  substantially  to  future  entertainments.  Altogether,  no  man 
stood  higher  in  the  estimation  of  the  people  of  his  state. 

But  corruption  stalked  in  high  places,  and  though  his  arm  was 
strong,  it  was  not  raised  to  smite.  His  voice  was  loud  and  clear 
and  the  people  heard  him  gladly,  but  it  was  not  heard  in  protest 
or  denunciation. 

At  the  time  of  which  I speak  he  was  between  fifty  and  sixty 
years  old.  He  was  speaking  of  his  youthful  hopes,  and  a friend 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


41 


asked  him  if  his  ideals  were  as  high  as  when  he  was  a young  man. 
There  was  a certain  grim  humor  in  his  reply : ‘ 1 When  I was  twenty- 
one  I wouldn’t  have  shaken  hands  with  a man  who  did  the  things 
I now  do  every  day.”  This  is  no  example  for  you  to  follow,  young 
gentlemen ; this  is  a shocking  example. 

I congratulate  you,  gentlemen  of  the  graduating  class,  that  your 
lines  have  fallen,  if  not  in  pleasanter,  in  more  wholesome  places; 
that  you  go  out  into  the  world  and  take  up  your  life  work  at  a 
period  when  your  ideals  are  in  less  danger  of  tarnish  or  corruption 
from  contact  with  the  common,  everyday,  working  ideals  of  the 
general  public.  No  man  who  has  lived  on  the  big  road  and  read 
the  papers  thoughtfully  for  the  past  twelve  or  fifteen  years  can 
doubt  that  there  has  been  a great  change  in  the  public  estimation 
of  many  vital  matters,  in  the  public  ideals  in  regard  to  them,  and 
that  the  change  has  been  greatly  for  the  better.  To  whatever  cause 
we  may  ascribe  this  change,  we  cannot  doubt  that  it  has  taken  place. 
The  thoughtful  observer  can  see  the  evidences  everywhere,  in  the 
higher  tone  of  business  relations,  in  the  loftier  ethics  of  the  pro- 
fessions, in  the  livelier  sense  of  official  duty  and  responsibility,  in 
the  keener  realization  of  the  governmental  obligations  of  the  indi- 
vidual citizen. 

In  business  we  see  a steadily*  growing  disposition  on  the  part 
of  the  managers  to  consider  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  public, 
and  a still  stronger  disposition  on  the  part  of  the  public  to  insist 
upon  its  rights.  In  the  professions  the  change  has  not  been  so  ap- 
parent to  me,  perhaps  because  we  do  not  notice  the  changes  in 
things  close  to  us,  and  perhaps  because  the  ethical  standards  of  the 
true  representatives  of  the  professions  have  always  been  relatively 
high.  With  regard  to  our  own  profession,  my  old  friend  Judge 
Barr  used  to  say  that  he  thought  a lawyer  who  was  reasonable  hon- 
est to  start  with,  and  had  sense,  was  probably  the  “honestest”  man 
in  his  community,  for  he  could  not  deceive  himself.  I confess  that 
I have  not  thovight  there  was  much  change  for  the  better  in  our 
professional  standards,  but  a matter  came  to  my  personal  knowl- 
edge recently  which  rather  astonished  me.  Three  great  lawyers 
representing  three  great  interests  were  called  together  to  consider 
a claim.  It  was  not  a legal  claim.  It  was  not  claimed  that  it  was. 
There  were  no  circumstances  which  by  way  of  estoppel  or  other- 
wise could  have  made  it  cognizable  by  a court  of  equity.  The 
claimant  was  absolutely  without  remedy  except  to  reclaim  his 
property,  which  when  reclaimed  would  have  been  junk.  His  labor, 
which  amounted  to  at  least  75  per  cent,  of  his  claim,  was  lost  if 


42 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


the  strict  letter  of  the  law  prevailed,  and  he  was  bankrupt.  After 
due  consideration,  these  lawyers  said  “We  are  in  nowise  respon- 
sible for  what  has  been  done;  our  clients  are  in  nowise  responsible 
legally.  But  what  has  been  done  is  for  their  benefit ; it  is  what  they 
would  themselves  in  time  have  necessarily  done.  We  recognize  a 
moral  obligation,  and  they  will  accept  what  has  been  done  and  pay 
the  full  value.”  It  was  more  than  a million  dollars,  I doubt  if 
this  could  have  happened  twenty  years  ago.  I doubt  if  the  lawyers 
would  then  have  so  advised,  or  that  the  parties  would  have  followed 
such  advice.  It  gave  me  a pleasant  feeling  about  our  profession. 

It  is  in  the  public  sense  of  official  duty  that  there  appears  the 
greatest  change,  and  this  applies  both  to  public  and  corporate  offi- 
cials. I do  not  mean  that  all  officials  have  a just  or  proper  or  high 
sense  of  responsibility  to  their  public  or  their  corporations.  There 
are  too  many  officials  who  never  realize  a public  responsibility  un- 
til it  clutches  them  by  the  back  of  the  neck  and  slips  the  handcuffs 
on.  I mean  the  sense  the  public  has  of  the  responsibility  of  its 
officers,  and  that  this  sense  has  been  quickened  a number  of  officials 
can  bear  melancholy  testimony. 

When  we  come  to  governmental  ideals  the  air  is  so  full  of  new 
panaceas  that  I hesitate  to  speak  of  any.  The  initiative,  referen- 
dum, and  recall  are  those  whose  advocates  are  now  most  insistent. 
We  have  a sort  of  combination  of  the  initiative  and  referendum  in 
our  local  option  laws  which,  when  properly  drawn,  work  very  well 
indeed.  The  recall,  especially  for  judges,  I do  not  believe  in.  It 
seems  to  me  that  it  would  speedily  degenerate  from  being  a popular 
rebuke  of  a corrupt  or  incompetent  officer,  to  a mere  party  device 
for  trying  over  again  a close  election,  with  a bigger  campaign  fund. 
Then  there  is  the  scheme  of  working-men’s  insurance  which  is  en- 
gaging the  attention  of  the  English  Chancellor.  There  are  the  nu- 
merous plans  for  dissolving  the  lewd  partnership  between  vice  and 
public  office,  which  has  existed  so  notoriously  in  many  of  our  larger 
cities;  and  there  are  many  other  governmental  plans  now  before 
the  public.  But  it  is  not  necessary  for  our  purpose  to  go  into  the 
merits  of  those  plans.  All  of  them  seem  well  meant.  Some  of 
them  are  good.  Most  of  them  are  ineffective.  Some  are  utterly 
bad.  What  is  encouraging  is  the  interest  which  the  public  every- 
where is  taking  in  its  own  government,  and  this  interest  has  sprung 
up  or  revived  to  such  an  extent,  and  become  so  vital  that  we  may 
look  forward  to  the  good  day  when  men  of  the  so-called  better  ele- 
ment, who  in  the  past  have  notoriously  neglected  their  political  du- 
ties, will  be  as  much  ashamed  of  neglecting  to  vote  as  they  would 


COMMENCEMENT  NTJMBEE 


43 


be  of  failure  to  pay  their  pew.  rent  or  their  washerwomen.  Just  a 
little  while  ago  a preacher  of  my  church,  a church  which  in  the  past 
has  not  been  prone  to  mix  in  political  matters,  said  in  a sermon 
before  the  presbytery  in  substance  this,  “Though  a man  perform 
al]  his  religious  duties  and  be  active  in  the  church  and  Sunday- 
school  work,  I hold  him  not  to  be  a good  man  if  he  fail  to  protest 
by  voice  and  vote  against  public  corruption.” 

What  has  been  the  potential  cause  of  the  change  a prudent  man 
will  hesitate  to  say.  It  may  be  that  we  have  just  caught  the  mighty 
upward  surge  of  the  nation’s  moral  pendulum.  It  may  be  the  re- 
sult of  one  of  those  mysterious  movements  in  the  nature  of  man- 
kind, which  work  unseen  till  the  appointed  time,  and  then  produce, 
sometimes  a tidal  wave  of  horror,  like  the  French  revolution,  some- 
times a beneficent  and  fructifying  Nile  inundation,  like  the  Refor- 
mation. Such  results  seem  spontaneous,  but  are  no  more  sponta- 
neous than  the  San  Francisco  earthquake  or  an  eruption  of  Vesu- 
vius. We  do  not  know — that  is  all.  We  cannot  see  the  hidden 
fires,  or  hear  the  roaring  hammers,  where  the  thunderbolts  are 
forged. 

But  among  the  things  which  we  can  see,  and  know,  and  partly 
understand,  which  have  contributed  to  quicken  the  public  con- 
science, to  raise  the  sea  level  of  public  morality  as  a new  base  line 
from  which  to  measure  the  heights  of  integrity  or  the  depths  of 
guilt,  I should  say  w’e  owe  most  to  one  man. 

Honor  to  whom  honor  is  due.  Some  of  us  do  not  like  him,  more 
do  not  like  his  style  and  his  teeth.  Some  are  hostile  to  his  political 
principles;  some  say  he  stole  them  from  his  one-time  rival.  But 
Theodore  Roosevelt,  with  his  iteration  and  reiteration  (his  damnable 
iteration,  some  call  it)  of  the  old  moralities,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  from  the  White  House,  from  the  stump,  from  the  jungle, 
ex  cathedra  and  ex  mero  motu  (ipse  dixit,  if  you  will),  has,  more 
than  any  force  we  can  measure  with  our  mental  instruments,  caused 
the  public  conscience  to  open  its  eyes,  like  a nine  days’  old  puppy, 
and  look  out  on  a world  full  of  a number  of  curious  things,  many 
of  which  it  does  not  yet  understand.  More  than  any  other  human 
agency  he  has  contributed  to  the  existence  of  the  present  public 
ideals.  Are  they  new?  In  a sense,  yes.  When  I was  a boy,  a new 
paper  was  started  in  New  York  which  published  a text  of  Scripture 
every  day  at  the  head  of  its  news  columns.  The  editor  said  it 
would  be  news  in  Wall  Street.  Should  we  call  our  ideals  new? 
Not  so.  They  are  the  new  evangel — glad  tidings  of  great  joy — of 
the  old,  old  ideals,  the  ideals  that  were  given  us  at  our  mothers’ 


44 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


knees — truth  and  honor  and  duty  and  love — the  ideals  that  seemed 
good  in  the  Garden  of  Eden— that  Eve  taught  Cain  and  Abel  after 
she  had  learned  the  difference  between  good  and  evil. 

Has  this  new  evangel  availed  to  affect  the  daily  life  of  the  na- 
tion? Yes,  and  it  should  be  said  boldly — yes.  There  are  scandals 
in  business,  perhaps  more  than  there  used  to  be,  but  we  know  now 
that  there  are  men  who  smite  corruption  when  they  find  it.  Haven’t 
we  seen  some  of  the  satraps  of  ill-gotten  wealth,  trying  to  sit  still 
in  grand  jury  anterooms,  hoping  for  an  immunity  bath?  And  as 
for  scandals,  wasn’t  there  great  and  unheard  of  scandal  in  Jeru- 
salem when  He  overthrew  the  tables  of  the  money-changers  in  the 
temple?  Will  the  ladies  tell  us  whether  there  is  any  way  of  clean- 
ing house  without  finding  dirt,  and  if  you  carry  the  dirt  out,  won’t 
the  neighbors  see  it?  Scandals  and  dirt  there  will  be  to  the  end 
of  our  time.  Be  it  your  duty  to  see  that  the  proper  house  cleaning 
takes  place  at  proper  intervals. 

I shall  not  take  up  your  time  to  say  to  you  that  the  law  is  a 
jealous  mistress  and  requires  constant  devotion ; to  exhort  you  to 
be  true  to  the  high  ideals  of  that  great  profession  which  offers  more 
opportunities  of  public  service,  as  I see  it,  than  any  other.  These 
things  have  all  been  said  to  you.  I have  no  code  of  ethics  to  recom- 
mend to  you  except  the  old  moralities.  If  you  have  ideals  you  will 
work  for  them ; if  they  are  vitally  a part  of  you,  you  will  be  true  to 
them.  When  Mr.  Pingy  Connors,  the  New  York  boss,  was  break- 
ing into  society,  he  was  reproved  by  one  of  his  social  mentors  for 
his  ostentatious  display  of  big  diamonds,  and  plain  pearl  buttons 
were  suggested  as  a substitute.  Said  he,  ‘ ‘ I notice  them  as  has  ’em 
wears  ’em.”  So  those  who  have  real  ideals  are  proud  to  wear 
them,  and  they  are  as  a lamp  unto  their  feet.  And  so,  I congratu- 
late you  again  on  the  period  when  you  go  out  to  do  your  part  of 
the  world’s  work;  that  there  is  a public  sentiment  to  sustain  you 
in  it ; that  there  will  be  a public  opinion  behind  you  strong  enough 
to  force  vice  to  wear  the  mask  of  virtue. 

And  before  we  part,  I wish  to  congratulate  you  upon  another 
thing — upon  the  fact  that  the  future  is  all  before  you.  Everything 
good  is  there  for  your  selection.  Sometimes  I have  wished  that  the 
experience  of  the  elders  could,  in  some  way,  be  made  available  for 
the  young.  But  if  it  could,  would  anything  great  be  done  ? Youth 
knows  better.  It  wants  its  own  experience,  and  gets  it.  Who’s 
afraid?  As  my  old  friend  General  Baker  (the  youngest  man  of 
his  age  I ever  knew)  used  to  say,  “We  belong  to  the  blue-eyed,  red- 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


45 


boned  race,  the  conquerors  of  the  earth  and  the  inheritors  of  its 
fatness.  You  can  strike  fire  from  our  shin  bones  after  they  have 
been  in  the  cemetery  vaults  a hundred  and  fifty  years,  ” For  us 
the  new  and  the  untried;  the  time  of  new  songs  for  us;  the  pure 
joy  of  living,  or  convertibly,  the  joy  of  pure  living,  when  the  blood 
is  full  of  iron  and  gunpowder  and  the  leaping  pulses  respond  to 
every  emotion.  Let  the  old  console  themselves  with  that  familiar 
sour  grapes  hymn  which  begins,  £ ‘ I would  not  live  alway,  I ask  not 
to  stay.” 

The  time  will  come  no  doubt,  though  we  do  not  believe  it,  when 
we  shall  be  looking  backward,  when  like  the  Hebrew  king,  we  shall 
exclaim  “Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity;”  when  we,  too,  may  take 
a melancholy  pleasure  in  recalling  the  lines  of  the  good  English 
Bishop,  though  I venture  to  say  that  before  he  wrote  them  he  had 
sailed  over  his  new  seas: 

“Tbe  happiest  heart  that  ever  beat 
Was  in  some  quiet  breast 
That  found  the  common  daylight  sweet 
And  left  to  heaven  the  rest.” 

Sickness  comes  sometimes,  which  is  a temporary  form  of  age. 
and  then  of  course  we  must  moderate  our  transports.  My  old 
friend,  the  poet,  who  used  to  come  over  and  smoke  with  me  some- 
times in  Frankfort,  came  in  one  day,  just  before  the  Spanish  War 
broke  out.  His  clothes  were  not  brushed  and  he  did  not  care.  He 
was  smoking  the  remains  of  a dilapidated  stogey.  His  digestion 
was  out  of  order,  his  liver  wasn’t  working,  his  hair  was  beginning 
to  fall  out,  he  had  a troublesome  tooth,  some  corns,  and  wasn’t 
feeling  very  well  himself.  He  had  a poem  with  him.  It  began 
this  way: 

‘‘Give  us  new  seas  to  sail ; the  cry  is,  give  us  new  seas  to  sail, 

New  seas  to  sail,  be  they  ever  so  mad,  and  we  ship  in  the  teeth  of  the  gale ; 
For  the  old  seas  pall  on  our  souls  like  death,  their  deeps  and  their  tides 
we  know, 

The  slope  of  the  Continents  under  the  brine,  and  the  black  ooze  beds 
below.” 

After  Dewey  had  sailed  into  Manila  Bay,  over  the  torpedoes, 
which  providentially  were  not  there,  and  Spain  had  acquired  a sub- 
marine fleet  at  Santiago,  he  came  in  again.  He  was  evidently  feel- 
ing better.  He  had  on  a new  silk  hat,  a new  suit  of  clothes,  and 
a big  cigar  tilted  in  the  corner  of  his  mouth.  He  was  well  and 
young  and  happy.  His  future  was  before  him  again,  as  yours  is 


46 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


before  you  tonight.  He  had  a new  poem,  appropriate  then  and 
now,  and  it  concluded  like  this : 

“We  have  broken  at  last  from  the  fettering  past,  we  have  done  with  the 
dawdling  years, 

With  the  slothful  lease  of  a selfish  peace,  secure  from  intruding  fears. 

The  swaddling  clouts  are  off,  thank  God,  and  we’re  into  the  shining  mail ; 
We  have  taken  our  place  in  the  van  of  the  race,  we  have  got  new  seas 
to  sail.” 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


47 


PUBLIC  SERVICE  REFORM 

An  address  before  the  Alumni  Association,  June  20,  1911,  by  the  Hon. 
Cyrus  Davis,  ’SO,  of  Bloomfield,  Indiana. 

In  casting  about  for  a theme  for  this  occasion,  it  has  occurred 
to  me  that  the  alumni  of  Indiana  University,  as  the  chief  benefi- 
ciaries of  the  state’s  educational  system,  owe  a duty  paramount 
even  to  that  of  others  to  concern  themselves  with  problems  relat- 
ing to  the  welfare  of  the  state.  Accordingly,  I have  proposed  to 
discuss  for  a brief  time  the  subject  “The  Reform  of  the  Public 
Service.”  It  is  perhaps  common  observation  that  the  American 
people  are  inclined  to  expect  their  laws  to  be  self  executing.  Ac- 
cordingly, when  some  tendency  appears  to  need  reform  or  some 
course  of  human  conduct  seems  to  need  restraint,  existing  statute-; 
are  at  once  blamed,  and  there  is  a clamor  to  the  legislature  for  new 
laws,  which,  when  enacted,  show  the  same  perverse  lack  of  effi- 
ciency to  execute  themselves,  and  soon  meet  the  same  fate  in  un- 
popularity as  their  predecessors. 

Gibraltar  itself  would  cease  to  be  impregnable  if  garrisoned  by 
traitors  or  imbeciles.  The  wisest,  most  beneficent  laws  will  fail  to 
conserve  the  happiness  of  the  people  if  administered  by  unscrupu- 
lous or  incompetent  officers.  An  autocracy  administered  by  a 
wise  and  benevolent  monarch  will  for  the  time  being  bring  more 
happiness  and  satisfaction  to  its  people  than  so-called  free  insti- 
tutions administered  without  conscience  or  without  wisdom. 

This  fact  has  more  than  once  caused  nations,  discouraged  by  in- 
competent, selfish  or  criminal  administration  of  comparatively  free 
forms  of  government,  to  seek  refuge  in  the  arbitrary  power  of  a 
gifted  and  just-minded  autocrat.  In  their  shortsightedness,  such 
nations  have  forgotten  that  two  things  are  fundamentally  necessary 
to  permanent  good  government : First,  free  institutions,  and,  sec- 
ond, their  righteous  and  wise  administration. 

A scarcely  lesser  error  is  that  of  a people  who  get  into  the  habit 
of  thinking  that  when  free  institutions  are  secured,  the  character 
of  their  administration  is  of  secondary  importance. 

It  has  become  a favorite  saying  in  our  country  that  ours  is  a gov- 
ernment of  law  and  not  of  men,  and  the  thought  has  done  its  full 
share  of  harm  in  creating  in  our  people  a submissive  dependence 
on  our  free  institutions  to  secure  good  government,  with  only  a 
minimum  concern  for  the  character  of  the  men  who  are  to  admin- 
ister them.  This  view  of  our  civic  situation  has  only  the  one  ele- 


48 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


ment  of  truth,  that  public  officers  are,  if  competent  and  conscien- 
tious, guided  by  law  and  not  by  caprice. 

But  suppose  these  officers  are  either  incompetent  or  unscrupu- 
lous. What  boots  it  to  be  protected  by  a constitution,  if  the  execu- 
tive vested  with  final  power,  through  blindness  or  viciousness,  ig- 
nores that  constitution.  What  boots  it  to  have  the  law  on  your 
side,  if  the  court  of  last  resort,  through  ignorance  or  prejudice, 
puts  a silly  or  wicked  construction  upon  that  law.  What  boots  it 
to  have  wise  statutes,  if  weak  or  dishonest  officials  evade  those  stat- 
utes. The  practical  importance  of  this  thought  to  us  as  a nation 
receives  daily  illustration.  A large  number  of  our  officials,  mu- 
nicipal, county  and  state,  give  little  attention  to  their  offices  ex- 
cept to  draw  their  salaries,  depending  on  deputies  hired  by  a small 
percentage  of  their  annual  stipend.  Official  irregularity  and  crook- 
edness has  become  so  common,  that  in  Indiana  the  people  have 
sought  refuge  in  a law  creating  a public  accounting  board,  charged 
with  the  duty  of  enforcing  the  honesty  and  efficiency  of  officers 
who  have  themselves  been  invested  by  the  people  with  power,  pre- 
sumably for  their  honesty  and  efficiency. 

There  are  judicial  circuits  in  this  state  in  which  one-half  the 
prosecuting  attorneys  that  have  held  office  in  the  last  thirty  years 
have  been  bribe  takers. 

It  is  so  recent  as  to  be  fresh  in  the  memory  of  us  all  that  a state 
officer  has  been  removed  from  office  and  sent  to  the  state’s  prison 
for  a crime  which  every  lawyer  who  has  studied  the  case  knows 
had  been  ignorantly  or  wilfully  committed  by  one-half  the  officers 
who  had  handled  public  moneys  in  Indiana  for  the  preceding  quar- 
ter of  a century,  and  this  law,  until  resurrected  by  a Governor  of 
the  State,  had  for  that  time  remained  a dead  letter. 

Every  observant  man  who  has  served  in,  or  lingered  about  the 
sessions  of  legislatures  in  this  and  other  states,  knows  that  an  in- 
creasingly large  number  of  the  membership  prove  themselves  lack- 
ing in  judgment  or  integrity  to  resist  the  sophistry  and  corruption 
of  the  special  interests. 

As  much  as  is  heard  about  graft  in  city  government,  only  those 
who  habitually  do  business  with  these  municipalities  have  any  con- 
ception of  the  alarming  extent  of  the  evil.  These  business  men 
know  that  the  half  is  not  told  in  the  public  prints. 

The  judiciary  of  Indiana  has  been  kept  the  purest  and  most 
efficient  of  any  branch  of  government,  and  yet  it  is  not  at  all  un- 
common to  find  on  the  bench  in  our  State  men  who  are  only  third- 
rate  lawyers. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


49 


The  only  way  to  have  more  upright  and  efficient  officials  in  onr 
elective  offices,  is  for  the  voters  to  elect  better  men.  It  is  not  de- 
nied in  theory,  and  yet  in  practice  it  seems  scarcely  to  be  appre- 
ciated that,  after  all,  the  voters  are  responsible  for  these  official 
delinquencies. 

The  advocate  of  the  so-called  short  ballot  excuses  the  voters  on 
the  ground  that  we  elect  so  many  officers  that  it  is  impossible  for 
the  voters  to  ascertain  the  real  character  of  a large  per  cent  of  the 
candidates. 

The  remedy  these  advocates  propose  is  to  limit  elective  offices 
to  the  chiefs,  and  let  the  chiefs  appoint  the  others. 

This  may  be  wise,  but  is  it  not  a confession  of  the  partial  in- 
capacity of  the  people  for  self-government?  An  implication  that 
the  voters  are  only  to  a limited  extent  capable  of  selecting  their 
rulers?  Is  not  the  proposition  a kindred  plant  to  all  the  othef 
propositions  sprouting  out  of  our  rapidly  centralizing  civilization, 
proposing  limitations  upon  the  direct  power  of  the  people?  More- 
over, observation  will  convince  that  the  mistakes  that  are  made  at 
the  elections  are  most  frequently  the  result  of  something  other 
than  want  of  information. 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  many  candidates  succeed  in  conven- 
tions and  at  the  polls,  whom  the  electors  know  to  be  bad  or  incom- 
petent. 

Continued  observation  will  enable  any  observant  man  to  cite 
many  instances  to  prove  this  proposition. 

The  most  notoriously  corrupt  prosecuting  attorney  that  ever 
disgraced  that  office  in  Indiana  had  been  out  of  office  for  a short 
time  only,  when  his  party  nominated  him  for  judge  of  the  same  ju- 
dicial circuit,  and  but  for  a convention  row  in  no  way  caused  by 
his  character,  he  would  have  been  elected. 

A man  generally  known  to  have  been  guilty  of  more  than  one 
felony,  has  in  recent  years  been  elected  by  his  neighbors  to  a high 
municipal  office. 

A man  was  recently  nominated  for  office  by  the  dominant  party 
in  his  county  before  he  had  settled  with  his  bondsmen  a defalea- 
tion  in  a former  office. 

The  same  county  once  sent  a man  to  the  legislature  who,  among 
his  other  known  incapacities,  was  intoxicated  during  the  greater 
part  of  the  session. 

In  the  same  county,  the  opposite  party  once  sent  a man  to  the 
state  senate  who  was  drunk  the  day  he  was  nominated,  and  was 


50 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


drunk  oftener  than  sober  from  that  day  till  the  end  of  the  first 
session  to  which  he  was  elected. 

These  cases  may  be  exceptional,  but  they  are  the  extreme  prod- 
ucts of  causes  that  lead  the  people  to  commit  hundreds  of  lesser, 
yet  distressingly  disastrous  errors  in  the  selection  of  their  public 
servants. 

Intellectual  incapacity  on  the  part  of  our  voters  is  not  one  of 
these  causes.  The  education  of  the  American  voter  on  the  intel- 
lectual side  has  not  been  neglected.  The  average  American  mind 
is  well  trained  and  well  informed  on  economic  and  social  problems. 
The  questions  relating  to  the  tariff,  the  trusts,  the  finances,  to  mu- 
nicipal government,  to  administrative  reforms  are  really  well  un- 
derstood. 

The  American  electorate  is  capable  of  judging  the  character 
and  motives  of  men.  It  is  to  no  serious  degree  wanting  in  acumen 
to  prevent  it  from  being  deceived  as  to  the  merits  of  either  meas- 
ures or  men. 

The  difficulty  lies  in  what  may  be  called  the  moral  attitude 
of  the  voter  toward  the  duties  incident  to  the  right  of  the  elective 
franchise. 

The  people  as  a rule  care  much  less  than  they  pretend  for  the 
character  of  their  public  officials. 

At  every  election,  large  numbers  of  voters  are  influenced  and, 
indeed,  many  are  in  the  main  controlled  by  motives,  which,  from 
the  standpoint  of  good  citizenship,  are  absolutely  illegitimate.  The 
best  appreciated,  perhaps,  of  these  motives  is  direct  bribery.  The 
balance  of  power  is  not  infrequently  held  by  that  lowest  stratum 
of  the  electorate  who  sell  their  suffrage  for  money,  but  as  appall- 
ing as  is  this  evil,  there  are  numbers  of  other  motives  which,  though 
less  base,  cause  a vastly  greater  number  of  votes  to  go  astray  than 
does  direct  bribery. 

First,  the  personal  element  enters  too  largely  into  our  elections. 

Thousands  of  average  citizens  will  in  their  party  primaries  and 
conventions,  and  not  infrequently  in  the  general  elections,  vote 
for  a man  they  like,  though  secretly  knowing  him  to  be  unfit,  in 
preference  to  a man  they  do  not  like,  though  secretly  knowing  him 
to  be  fit. 

A capacity  for  hand  shaking  has  nothing  to  do  with  a man’s 
qualifications  for  office,  and  yet  it  will  get  him  more  votes  than  a 
score  of  real  qualifications. 

The  so-called  good  fellow  who  spends  his  money  freely  will,  as 
a candidate,  walk  completely  away  from  a close-fisted,  careful  man. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


51 


though  in  a majority  of  such  cases,  his  popularity  is  bought  with 
money  that  either  belongs  to  the  public  or  his  creditors,  and  he  is 
for  that  very  reason  an  improper  man  to  elect. 

Secondly,  the  difficulty  in  securing  desirable  public  servants 
is  increased  by  a foolish  sentiment  among  the  people  that  a man 
ought  not  to  have  an  office  who  will  not  beg  them  for  it. 

The  office  seeker  is,  as  a rule,  much  less  desirable  for  a public 
servant  than  the  man  who  refuses  to  enter  the  scramble  for  office, 
and  yet  the  maxim  that  the  office  should  seek  the  man  and  not  the 
man  the  office,  has  little  weight  in  practice. 

There  is  only  one  motive  that  should  lead  a man  to  seek  office, 
namely,  that  by  holding  office,  he  may  be  able  the  better  to  serve 
his  fellows,  and  yet  the  man  who  seeks  office  from  any  such  motive 
is  the  exception  and  not  the  rule. 

If  it  were  generally  felt  to  be  as  much  of  an  impropriety  for 
man  to  seek  official  employment,  as  it  is  for  him  to  seek  profes- 
sional employment,  the  nation  would  soon  be  blessed  with  a much 
higher  grade  of  public  officials. 

Custom  and  public  sentiment  makes  it  well-nigh  impossible  for 
us  to  obtain  our  public  servants  from  among  any  but  the  office- 
seeking class,  whose  very  selfishness  disqualifies  them  in  a measure 
for  a disinterested  discharge  of  public  duty. 

The  last  to  mention,  but  chief  in  importance  among  the  per- 
verted criterions  of  the  voters  of  our  republic,  that  obstructs  the 
procurement  of  desirable  public  servants,  is  that  which  for  want 
of  a better  name  I shall  call  political  commercialism.  I mean  not 
the  spirit  of  commercialism  controlling  big  business  which  seeks 
with  unlimited  effrontery  to  dominate  our  government  and  laws;  I 
mean  the  spirit  of  commercialism  which  has  come  so  largely  to 
actuate  the  individual  voter,  which  causes  him  to  gauge  every  pro- 
posed man  or  measure  by  the  question.  Will  his  or  its  success  bring 
financial  prosperity  or  adversity?  Ninety  per  cent  of  the  thought 
energy  of  the  American  voter  as  to  the  casting  of  his  vote  centers  on 
the  proposition  whether  his  vote  will  bring  good  times  or  bad  times. 

Ninety  per  cent  of  our  political  oratory  makes  this  question 
the  dominant  note  of  its  appeal.  Ninety  per  cent  of  our  partisan 
literature  is  addressed  to  the  propagation  of  this  idea.  Compara- 
tively little  attention  is  given  either  to  moral  aspects  of  a political 
program,  its  effect  on  character  or  even  its  effect  on  liberty. 

At  the  present  rate  of  the  growth  of  this  spirit,  in  less  than  a 
generation  a political  orator  may  propose  with  impunity  and  con- 
sistency that  it  is  permissible  to  submit  even  to  arbitrary  power, 


52 


INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


if  only  it  will  bring  good  times.  Even  now  we  can  scarcely  con- 
ceive of  the  defeat  at  the  polls  of  any  man  or  measure  whose  suc- 
cess it  were  generally  conceded  would  greatly  increase  financial 
prosperity. 

Quite  as  much  as  socialism  this  political  commercialism  is  bot- 
tomed on  the  belief  that  it  is  the  business  of  government  to  fur- 
nish every  man  a living,  but  unlike  socialism  it  has  not  the  merit 
of  treating  this  idea  as  a corollary  of  fundamental  moral  truth. 

The  moral  and  patriotic  fervor  that  fired  the  heroes  of  our  na- 
tion’s infancy,  and  that  more  than  once  since  has  aroused  the  soul 
of  the  republic  to  material  sacrifice  for  the  sake  of  moral  truth, 
forbids  the  conclusion  that  as  a people  we  are  naturally  sordid  or 
selfish  in  treating  public5  problems. 

The  perverted  conceptions  of  public  duty  we  have  noted  in  our 
voting  population  are  not  inherent  in  the  American  mind,  but  the 
result  of  false  education. 

The  blame  for  this  false  education  of  the  electorate  lies  chiefly 
at  the  door  of  our  politicians,  small  and  great.  The  people  have 
simply  been  trained  to  this  attitude  by  their  political  leaders. 

From  the  ward  captain  who  persuades  the  indigent  voter  that 
it  is  all  right  for  him  to  sell  his  vote  to  the  politician  of  nation-wide 
prominence,  who  claims  persistently  that  a man  should  gauge  his 
vote  according  to  its  supposed  effect  on  his  occupation  or  business, 
these  leaders  one  and  all  have  been  pouring  this  poison  into  the 
American  mind  until  it  has  become  a controlling  factor  in  politi- 
cal life. 

Candidates  almost  without  exception  have  encouraged  the  feel- 
ing that  personal  likes  and  dislikes  form  proper  motives  for  deter- 
mining a voter’s  choice. 

Politicians  of  all  grades  proclaim  the  sentiment  that  a man  is 
not  entitled  to  support  for  office  unless  he  seeks  it.  This  poisonous 
propaganda  has  been  spread  for  so  long  and  so  persistently  that 
these  pernicious  standards  of  citizenship  have  become  the  controll- 
ing forces  behind  the  exercise  of  the  elective  franchise. 

Of  all  the  tendencies  in  the  Republic  that  are  supposed  to  be 
undermining  our  national  life,  this  unsound  attitude  of  the  elec- 
torate toward  the  selection  of  their  public  servants  is  believed  to 
be  the  most  dangerous. 

Of  all  the  obstructions  to  reform,  this  perverse  attitude  is  be- 
lieved to  be  the  most  formidable. 

Sound  theories  and  righteous  laws  will  not  work  reforms  un- 
less our  official  life  is  purged  and  purified. 


COMMENCEMENT  NUMBER 


53 


A high  standard  of  popular  intelligence  will  not  qualify  for 
successful  self-government  if  false  standards  of  civic  duty  con- 
tinue to  cloud  the  moral  vision  of  the  electorate. 

The  evils  that  corrode  the  elective  franchise,  like  most  other 
evils  that  afflict  society,  cannot  be  cured  by  statute.  The  greater 
per  cent,  of  right  doing  among  men  comes  not  from  fear  of  legal  con- 
sequences, but  from  the  bent  of  individual  character.  If  a majority 
of  men  were  disposed  to  right  conduct  only  from  compulsion  and 
not  from  choice,  government  would  soon  fail,  society  soon  lapse  into 
anarchy. 

As  these  base  criterions  of  the  electorate  are  born  of  false  edu- 
cation, so  they  must  be  removed  by  true  education. 

The  voter  must  be  educated  to  feel  that  the  elective  franchise 
not  only  confers  a privilege,  but  imposes  an  obligation. 

He  must  be  educated  to  realize  that  his  franchise  belongs  to 
the  state,  and  that  he  has  no  right  to  use  it  to  reward  friends,  to 
punish  enemies,  to  gratify  personal  liking,  or  to  avenge  personal 
wrongs. 

He  must  be  educated  to  know  that  a capacity  for  office  seeking 
does  not  indicate  a capacity  for  office  holding,  and  that  position 
h not  to  be  bestowed  on  a man  because  he  desires  it,  but  because 
the  public  needs  the  man. 

Above  all,  must  it  be  engraved  in  his  moral  fiber,  that  bribe  tak- 
ing at  the  polls  or  in  office  is  as  disgraceful  as  stealing  and  treason, 
and  that  voting  for  one’s  private  business  against  the  public  weal, 
while  more  respectable,  is  no  less  a violation  of  civic  duty. 

The  greatest  need  of  this  nation  is  a baptism  of  patriotism.  Not 
the  patriotism  which  vaunts  itself  on  our  commercial,  and  physi- 
cal, and  military  greatness,  not  the  patriotism  which  makes  the 
heart  beat  quicker  at  the  sound  of  martial  music,  which  makes  the 
shout  ring  louder  at  the  Jingo’s  boast,  which  makes  the  soul  thrill 
stronger  at  the  roar  of  cannon.  We  have  enough  and  to  spare  of 
that  kind  already,  and  the  pity  of  it  is  that  its  superabundance 
chokes  the  growth  of  the  better  kind. 

The  patriotism  we  need  to  acquire  is  the  love  of  country  for 
liberty’s  sake,  the  wish  that  America  may  be  great  in  making  her 
people  happy,  that  she  may  not  only  be  powerful  but  pure.  That 
she  may  be  an  instrument  not  to  conquer  mankind  but  to  bless  man- 
kind, and  that  her  excellence  shall  be  not  so  much  in  diplomacy 
and  war  and  commercial  power,  but  in  the  justness  of  her  laws 
and  the  purity  of  their  administration. 


54 


3 0112  105651977 

INDIANA  UNIVERSITY  BULLETIN 


Even  if  it  were'  a part  of  my  purpose  so  to  do,  I should  con- 
fess myself  unable  to  solve  the  problem  definitely  as  to  the  source 
which  is  to  supply  this  needed  education  of  the  voter.  Certain  it 
is  that  we  cannot  depend  for  this  good  upon  the  teachings  of  our 
politicians,  whose  greed  for  office  and  victory  has  been  the  fountain 
of  the  evils  of  which  we  complain.  It  is  likewise  permissible  t > 
suggest  that  our  schools  and  colleges  have  not  given  to  this  item 
of  education  the  prominence  which  its  importance  to  society  de- 
mands. We  do  not  forget  that  other  influences,  such  as  the  press, 
lecture  platform  and  even  the  church,  are  responsible  factors  in  pa- 
triotic education,  and  that  the  entire  defect  in  our  training  for 
citizenship  cannot,  therefore,  be  charged  to  our  schools  and  col- 
leges. But  these  institutions  are  our  primary  forces  in  education. 
Besides,  the  voter  can  best  be  reached  at  the  impressionable  stage. 
Along  with  other  education,  these  debasing  tendencies  in  American 
political  thought  can  best  be  arrested  and  effaced,  and  hence  from 
the  class  room  and  lecture  room  preferably  should  sound  the  trum- 
pet that  calls  them  to  judgment. 

Our  institutions  of  learning  must  awaken  to  the  fact  that  in- 
tellectual training  but  half  prepares  for  citizenship,  and  that  high 
ideals  of  civic  duty  must  complete  the  equipment.  That  silence  on 
this  subject  in  the  class  room  and  lecture  room  must  give  place  to 
vigorous  and  persistent  admonition,  that  no  student,  male  or  fe- 
male, shall  be  permitted  to  go  forth  to  the  task  of  civic  life  with- 
out having  eradicated  from  his  mind  these  prevailing  sordid  and 
selfish  views  of  civic  duty.  In  the  course  of  this  instruction, 
standards  of  civic  conduct  must  cease  to  be  incidental,  and  be  pro- 
moted to  the  list  of  the  essential,  and  they  must  be  treated 
with  such  emphasis  and  enthusiasm  that  they  will  not  die  on  com- 
mencement day,  but  live  and  extend  into  civic  life  to  thrill  and  in- 
spire the  public  conscience,  that  the  light  which  is  shed  from  the 
class  room  and  lecture  room  shall  not  fade  with  the  borders  of  the 
playground  and  the  campus,  but  tinge  with  its  beneficent  glow  the 
farthest  horizon  of  our  commonwealth. 

Let  me  leave  this  summary : Good  laws  are  useless  without  wise 
and  just  administration.  Reform  of  the  public  service  can  only 
be  secured  through  the  reform  of  the  electorate.  The  electorate 
cannot  be  reformed  by  law,  but  through  an  education  of  the  indi- 
vidual voter,  which  shall  drive  from  his  mind  every  criterion  of 
civic  conduct  and  every  motive  for  the  casting  of  his  vote  except 
the  ultimate  well-being  of  that  portion  of  the  community  affected 


